Alexis Barnes

Artist Statement

My work is rooted in collage as a way of taking apart and rebuilding ideas about bodies, identity, femininity, desire, and belonging. I work primarily with found images and analog materials, pulling familiar bodies and objects out of their original contexts and placing them into relationships that are strange, intimate, humorous, or uncomfortable.

I am interested in the body as both a physical thing and a site where meaning gets assigned. Bodies are watched, desired, categorized, cared for, medicalized, celebrated, and asked to explain themselves. Through collage, I can interrupt those expectations. I can fragment a body without destroying it, exaggerate it without making it grotesque, or place tenderness beside something unsettling and allow both to exist at once.

Queerness is present in my work less as a fixed subject and more as a way of seeing. I am drawn to contradiction, transformation, excess, softness, and the freedom of refusing a single interpretation. My work makes space for bodies and identities that are complicated, funny, vulnerable, sensual, and sometimes difficult to name.

I want the finished pieces to feel a little familiar and a little impossible, inviting the viewer to sit with what attracts them, unsettles them, or makes them look twice.