Clarity Haynes
"Ria", 2009
Pastel on paper
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the artist. Part of Breast Portrait Project
2017.35.001

“The making of art is, for some artists, the making of a utopia, because it posits an alternative space, medium, and reality through which to explore our subjectivities and our bodies. In other words, we get to call the shots.”
Clarity Haynes, “Visionary Bodies,” Body Utopia (Brooklyn: Trestle Gallery, 2015)

Brooklyn-based painter Clarity Haynes works from life, creating portraits that honor the details of specific, individual bodies. Her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, MO. It is included in collections at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, PA; and Leslie Lohman Museum of Lesbian and Gay Art, NY.

Ria is part of Haynes’ Breast Portrait Project, a series she has been developing since the 1990s. Painted and drawn from life, these works direct our attention away from the site where we expect to find identity the face—and invite us to look for it in a region of the body that is often hidden from view

Item Description:
A realistic pastel drawing of a woman’s naked torso seen from the front. A dark pink scar curls across her left breast.