Born in Venezuela to Grenadian and Haitian migrant workers, Alvaro Barrington was raised between the Caribbean and Brooklyn, New York, by a network of relatives. An unwavering commitment to community informs his wide-ranging practice. While Barrington considers himself primarily a painter, his artistic collaborations encompass exhibitions, performances, concerts, fashion, philanthropy and contributions to the Notting Hill Carnival in London. His approach to painting is similarly inclusive – embracing non-traditional materials and techniques such as burlap, concrete, cardboard and sewing – and infused with references to his personal and cultural history.
Influence and exchange are crucial to Barrington, who draws upon a host of artistic and cultural references in his work. His personal touchstones include rapper Tupac Shakur and 90s hip-hop culture, jazz and the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey, modernist icons such as Willem de Kooning, Paul Klee, Agnes Martin and Louise Bourgeois, and his art-world peers. His resolutely interdisciplinary approach follows in the footsteps of Robert Rauschenberg’s groundbreaking Combines, which he references by incorporating real objects into the picture plane, including carpets, steel drums, brooms and fans. He is an artist who is continually expanding his constellation of references, inspirations and communities, while always acknowledging the formative role of art history in his practice.
For Barrington, painting is a way to experience the world we inhabit and explore the medium’s role within a long tradition of storytelling. His past exhibitions have examined themes of birthing and migration, aspirations in the Black community, mass incarceration and notions of time, as well as self-love and digital identities in isolated conditions. It is essential to him that people are able to encounter art in accessible spaces. One such space is that of Carnival, which he credits as the first fully-formed artistic experience of his life. He began collaborating with Notting Hill Carnival in 2019, when his first One Famalay concert brought Soca artists such as Machel Montano, Skinny Fabulous and others to London. In 2022 he produced Queen of the Caribbean, the official Notting Hill Carnival concert.
Barrington studied at Hunter College in New York and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, later teaching at both of his alma maters, as well as at the Cooper Union in New York. His first solo exhibition, which opened the same year he graduated, was curated by Klaus Biesenbach at MoMA PS1, Queens, in 2017. His work has since been shown in numerous solo and group shows, including Alvaro Barrington: SPIDER THE PIG, PIG THE SPIDER, South London Gallery, London (2021); Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London (2021); A Taste of Chocolate, Thaddaeus Ropac, London (2018), and through his ongoing Tt x AB collaboration with the painter Teresa Farrell. Barrington co-curated the exhibition Artists I Steal From with Julia Peyton-Jones at Thaddaeus Ropac, London in 2019, followed by his solo gallery exhibitions in Salzburg (2022) and Paris Marais (2021).
2023
Oh, Sandy? Sandy, Sandy, Karma, New York, NY, USA
Oh Sandy, why did you leave me all alone, Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2022
Alvaro Barrington: La Vie en Rose, Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
91–98 jfk–lax border, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2021
SPIDER THE PIG, PIG THE SPIDER, South London Gallery, London, UK
Wave Your Flags: Labor Day, Saint George Projects, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Tt x AB: The Lot Show, Far Rockaway, New York, NY, USA
Wave Your Flags, Tabernacle, London, UK
You don’t do it for the man, men never notice. You just do it for yourself, you're the fucking coldest, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
2018
A Taste of Chocolate, cur. Norman Rosenthal, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, UK
2017
Alvaro Barrington, cur. Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY, USA
2022
The Drawing Centre Show, Le Consortium, Dijon, France
2021
Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
In the Eye of the Storm, Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Hasselt, Belgium
Pigeon Park, London, UK
London Zeitgeist, Piccadilly Lights, London, UK
Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London, UK
The Dead Don't Die, Abattoir Gallery, Cleveland, OH, USA
2020
30 Years in Paris, Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris Pantin, France
A Focus on Painting, Thaddaeus Ropac, London, UK
No horizon, no edge to liquid, Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK
100 Drawings from Now, The Drawing Center, New York, NY, USA
2019
Go To Heaven, 130 E Flagler Street, Miami, FL, USA
Breathless / London Art Now, cur. Norman Rosenthal, Ca' Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna, Venice, Italy
Material Tells, cur. Daisy Desrosiers, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada
Artists I Steal From, cur. Alvaro Barrington and Julia Peyton-Jones, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London, UK
2018
The Way Things Run (Part 1: Loose Ends Don't Tie), PS120, Berlin, Germany
Widening the Gaze, cur. Zeinab Saleh, Slade Research Centre, London, UK
2017
The Sleeping Procession, Cass Sculpture Foundation, West Sussex, UK
The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami, USA
Tate, London, UK
Towner Museum, Eastbourne, UK
Fundación NMAC, Cádiz, Spain
K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong
Loewe Foundation, Madrid, Spain
Long Museum, Shanghai, China
rennie museum, Vancouver, Canada
Start Museum, Shanghai, China
X Museum, Beijing, China
2018
Rauschenberg Residency, Captiva Island, FL, USA