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RAY BARNHART
(American, 1903-1996)
Mine Texture, 1965
Mixed media
33 3/8 x 37 7/16 x 4”
Gift of Georgia Portmann Blanchard 1996.6

See Interpretive Text




Mine Texture

Sculptor Raymond Barnhart taught art at the University of Kentucky for thirty-two years, influencing several generations of students. He created “relief-constructions” of found objects. As he noted, “old materials have proved themselves—and improved with the patina of use and their resistance to human forces and weather.” Mine Texture, inspired by an abandoned silver mine in Chloride, Arizona, is an exploration of revitalized materials. According to the artist, the weather-beaten wood planks, glass shards, and rubber hoses reveal the “complicated and rich sense of how things relate to each other.” His relief-constructions, he wrote, “become documents by creating the right setting for the continued existence of the object.”