Ted Barnes

Ted Barnes, a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, earned an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Arkansas in 1979, an M.A. in Art Education from Western Kentucky University in 1977, and a B.A. in Studio Art from Ouachita Baptist University in 1972. He began his teaching career at Campbellsville College in 1979 and went on to serve for thirty-nine years as a teacher and administrator at Ouachita Baptist University, Louisiana College, Georgetown College, and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. He retired in May 2018 as Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts and Professor of Visual Art at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. In 1994, he was a visiting scholar in art at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University, in Oxford, England.

He remains an active visual artist and has participated in more than eighty solo and group exhibitions regionally and nationally. He lives in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas.

My artwork is devoted to seeking spiritual “Truth” through an awareness of mystery and paradox. At its core, it explores human contradiction—the tension between intuition and logic, emotion and reason, faith and knowledge, religion and science, myth and reality, and abstraction and representation. Although the imagery may not appear overtly spiritual at first, its purpose is to examine the relationship between my Southern heritage and personal faith, and the questions that arise from that intersection. The work engages broad religious, political, and cultural themes alongside my own personal narrative, often using found objects and drawing on influences such as modernism, baseball, advertising design, vernacular signage, religious icons, and pop-culture ephemera. My most recent work focuses specifically on the theme of pilgrimage. – Ted Barnes