Alvaro Barrington Limited Edition Artworks Limited Editions available at Tate

Alvaro Barrington has produced Fish – Down Under, 2024, and After Venus Grace Sam, 2024, two limited edition artworks to coincide with his commission, GRACE, for the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, 29 May 2024 – 26 January 2025.

For his Tate limited edition works, Barrington created two new paintings with the intention of them becoming prints. The paintings were digitally printed and Barrington hand-painted the screen-print overlays, working closely with the print-makers throughout the process.

The limited edition, Fish – Down Under, 2024, references Barrington’s Caribbean roots. Having left Grenada at the age of 8 to live with his mother in Brooklyn, New York, Barrington employs motifs of fish which are native to the Caribbean Sea and western Atlantic Ocean to depict notions of intimacy and migration. The fish appears to be just below the surface of the crystal-clear water, gazing upwards through streaks of blue. Barrington is inspired by the way Henri Matisse used layers of blue and white in his paper cut-out works to suggest the fluidity of water.

The limited edition, After Venus Grace Sam, 2024, pays homage to carnival festivities and the space that Caribbean communities create through Carnival to freely dance, socialise and celebrate their culture. Growing up between the Caribbean and New York, Barrington experienced the joy of attending carnival and observed the importance of it as a space for people, for women especially, to express themselves. ‘At carnival in the Caribbean, during a wet fete where partygoers are sometimes sprayed with fire hoses, you’d see a girl dancing in her underwear, and you’d know that this space was for her, not for you’ says Barrington, who has revisited the motif of the woman with her back turned, as she splashes in the sea, multiple times in his work. ‘I thought, as an art historical nerd, that I’ve been conditioned in that way – to know that this space was for her – and that it was interesting to see the difference between a Paul Gauguin bather, or a Lisa Brice bather, in terms of how the artists look at women. I wondered if I, as a Caribbean American man, could paint women in a way that made the viewer realise that it’s her space.’