The alchemy of light at Kenise Barnes Fine Art

The alchemy of light at Kenise Barnes Fine Art

The “Planting Utopia” series by Julia Whitney Barnes

Natalia Zukerman

‘Convert Light Energy” opened at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent on Saturday, April 26, pairing Julia Whitney Barnes’ hand-painted cyanotypes with Sarah Morejohn’s organic drawings. The show is a conversation between these two artists’ investigations of nature’s slow, secret work — a meditation on time, decay and beauty.

Barnes works with a cyanotype process, a camera-less photographic printing process invented in 1842 by scientist and astronomer, Sir John Hirschel, which produces a cyan-blue print when a chemically-coated surface is exposed to sunlight. Using weeds and flowers harvested from her own garden and nearby locations, Barnes exposes their silhouettes on photosensitive cotton paper before meticulously reanimating them in watercolor, gouache, and ink. The results feel both antique and joltingly alive, like a pressed flower found between the pages of a secret love note.

Viewers surrounded by Barnes’s paintings at the opening of “Convert Light Energy” at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in KentNatalia Zukerman

Morejohn, meanwhile, draws with a kind of meditative, trance-like quality, letting lines tangle and mutate until they resemble nerve endings, snow crystals, maps of imaginary weather. Her drawings are not so much of nature as from it — diagrams of an ever-changing world.

The show’s title, “Convert Light Energy,” describes both artists’ reverance for the fleeting and delicate — attempts not so much to preserve what fades, but to transform it into something fierce, tender, and alive.

The show runs through June 8 at Kenise Barnes Fine Art, 7 Fulling Lane, Kent.

Latest News

Barbara Meyers DelPrete

LAKEVILLE — Barbara Meyers DelPrete, 84, passed away Tuesday, September 30, 2025.

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated Saturday, October 4, 2025, at 11:00a.m. at St. Mary’s Church, 76 Sharon Rd., Lakeville.

Keep ReadingShow less
2025 candidates: Sharon

Get to know your candidates ahead of the 2025 municipal election. In Sharon, Casey Flanagan (D) is running unopposed for his second term as first selectman. There are two incumbent candidates for selectman: Lynn Kearcher (D) and John Brett (U). All three will be seated on the Board of Selectmen. Below, each candidate offered information about themselves and their goals for the town.


Keep ReadingShow less
2025 candidates: Kent

Get to know your candidates ahead of the 2025 municipal election. In Kent, Eric Epstein (D) is running unopposed for first selectman. There are two candidates for selectman: incumbent Lynn Mellis Worthington (D) and Lynn Harrington (R). All three will be seated on the Board of Selectmen. Below, each candidate offered information about themselves and their goals for the town.


Keep ReadingShow less
2025 candidates: North Canaan

Get to know your candidates ahead of the 2025 municipal election. In North Canaan, there are two candidates for first selectman and two candidates for selectman vying for a seat on the town board. Below, each candidate offered information about themselves and their goals for the town.


Keep ReadingShow less