Opening Date: February 10, 2023
Closing Date: March 25, 2023
Reception: February 10, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Exhibition: Something Else: A Bill Barter Retrospective
Presented by: Arts Fort Worth
Artist: Bill Barter
Venue: Arts Fort Worth
Fort Worth Community Arts Center
1300 Gendy Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76107
https://www.artsfortworth.org/
Arts Fort Worth and the Fort Worth Community Art Center are proud to present Something Else: A Bill Barter Retrospective. Bill Barter is a DFW based artist and long-time member of the Fort Worth Art Collective, with a primary focus on geometric abstraction. As Bill tells it, “I’ve never had any specific life goals, just whatever seemed a good idea at the time. My dad said ‘electronics is the future’ which prompted my decision to major in Physics.” Bill did attempt to change to a major in architecture, but due to administrative changes at the University of Texas he would be unable to take concurrent course work. This prompted him to move back to Kansas where he earned an MS in Physics in 1958. After, he began working for General Dynamics on the Atlas program, in the ground support, launch control area. He started a family with his wife Jean; they’ve now been married 70 years. In the mid-sixties, he enrolled in the “Famous Artists School, ” an art correspondence course founded by the New York Society of Illustrators, and continued making and learning, taking university and evening classes in life drawing, design, painting, and printing all while working and raising a family.
The title of the exhibition “Something Else” is taken from Bill’s artist statement, “I have liked best work which is abstract with little or no recognizable imagery and has ‘something else’ about it, some arrangement of formal qualities that grabs me.” This exhibition encompasses 55 plus years of making and looking for that “something else.” Featured are Bill’s explorations in geometric abstraction, to works that step out into the figurative, sculpture, and text-based artwork. Just as Bill directs his life—It just feels good.
