Biography
Chase Barney graduated with a BFA from the University of Minnesota in 2019 and his MFA at The School of the Art Institute Chicago in 2022. Barney has exhibited across the United States and has received numerous grants and scholarships in support of his work, including a 2020 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant and the New Artist Full Merit Scholarship from SAIC. Barney is originally from Utah, and currently lives and works in Chicago, IL.
Statement
My practice of creating ceramic vessels, figurines, and relief sculptures allows me to reinvent and project narratives that blend queer joy and religious melancholy. My object making is an exercise in conjuring queer power: a power that stems from inventing worlds where strangeness is a source of pleasure. My dedication to repeating iconography has become an obsession, allowing me to escape into another world. Ceramics is a way of documenting my findings.
As a Mormon youth born and raised in Utah, I was powerless against the religious fervor of the cultural landscape that surrounded me. To cope with this dominating atmosphere, I would reimagine Mormon sermons and their promises of moral utopias and escape into fantasies: bible stories, tales of righteous men conversing with angels, The Wizard of Oz on VHS, visits to the glitzy Las Vegas strip, and the sparkle of costumed men. I continue to rely on this coping mechanism.
The conflicts resulting from my present-day identity as a proud gay man and my past as an obedient Mormon create a tension that utopias are intended to lack. The façade of my work lures the viewer in with saturated color, subversive narratives, and humor. These elements overshadow the ominous undertones and unsettling sweetness in each scene, hinting at the unpleasantness beneath the gloss.