Rick Bartow: Origin of Song

Click here to view the Origin of Song Digital Exhibit Catalog

Personal experiences, cultural engagement and transformation stories animate Rick Bartow's wood sculpture, monotypes and paintings. Bartow’s work swings effortlessly from humorous and surprising to dark and challenging—and are often both simultaneously. Pulling from his tempestuous life experiences and the mythology of his Native heritage, Bartow’s work has one foot in our reality and the other in the swirling cauldron of the spirit world. He pours pure, instinctual gesture into each work, leaving fingerprints, smudges, strings of epoxy and cryptic words in his final works—evidence of his passage and process.

Mr. Bartow recently completed We Were Always Here, a large-scale sculpture commissioned by The Smithsonian/National Museum of the American Indian. Solo exhibitions include Dog's Journey: A 20 Year Survey, at The A.D. Gallery, University of North Carolina, Pembroke, and Missoula Art Museum, (2011-2012); a mid-career exhibit My Eye, at the Hallie Ford Museum (2002-04).