Del Kathryn Barton’s new exhibition at Albertz Benda in New York moves through bodies, instincts, and the charged spaces where forms begin to shift. The works feel alert to something living just beyond human perception, part ritual and part pulse. Del Kathryn Barton: the more than human world runs through December 13, 2025. We talked with Barton about connection, transformation, and the forces that guide this new body of work.
Your career has spanned 25 years and over 100 shows. How do you see your creative evolution over that time, and are there currents in this exhibition that signal a new direction?
Del Kathryn Barton: Looking back, I see my practice unfolding in organic response-to and expression-of my lived experience. Making became a lifeline for me as a young child and that urgency shaped everything that followed.
These in-between spaces both underpin and (yet can) remain autonomous to human consciousness.
I have always found comfort in visually-dense and narrative-heavy pictorial spaces. As I get older, different kinds of clarity and calm have emerged. I find myself trusting and preserving the quieter spaces inside the work now.
This exhibition charts these developments. The sculptures in particular brought a grounded, almost ancient energy into the studio.
“The more than human world” is an intriguing phrase. What does it mean to you, and how did it guide the development of this body of work?
Barton: For me, “the more than human world” evokes and honours networks of living intelligence that surround us—places of synergy, shimmer and coexistence.
These are worlds of instinct, natural environments, energy and emotional resonance. These in-between spaces both underpin and (yet can) remain autonomous to human consciousness.
This belief shaped the entire exhibition. I built the figures in a fluid, metamorphic connection to this wider field of life, as though their forms could open into wings, petals, or light. There is room for these bodies to become something other; something connected to forces both intimate and transcendental.
You’ve described your work as exploring unity, spirituality, and interconnectedness. How do these ideas manifest in these new paintings and sculptures?
Barton: In these works, the figures sit within universes of energy rather than in isolation. Their bodies merge with patterns, creatures, and atmospheres that suggest a larger choreography of life. That interconnectedness is where the emotional weight of the work lies for me.
New York is a space that strips you bare in all the right ways.
The sculptures deepen this conversation by giving that energy physical mass. Bronze has a gravity and a temperature that carries the spiritual charge of the feminine in a new way. The paintings echo that presence through intentional colour, gesture, and pattern. Each medium informs and extends into the other.
This is your first solo exhibition in New York since 2020 and your third with Albertz Benda in NY. How does it feel to return to the city at this moment in your career?
Barton: It feels incredibly meaningful to return, always! New York is a space that strips you bare in all the right ways.
My relationship with Albertz Benda continues to be enduring and generous. Sharing this new body of work with this city reflects a working relationship that consistently evolves with trust and reciprocity.
Many of your works celebrate feminine energy, motherhood, and care. How do those themes evolve or transform in this new exhibition?
Barton: The feminine in my work communicates my lived experience as a woman: complex, tender, ferocious and sensual. Motherhood expanded my emotional life profoundly and still informs everything I make.
The feminine in my work communicates my lived experience as a woman: complex, tender, ferocious and sensual.
In this exhibition, the feminine moves (at times) into more archetypal realms. The agency of these hybrid forms carries raw, alchemical forces. The sense of care becomes broader and more ecological, connected not only to human relationships but to the larger living world.
What do you hope viewers carry with them after experiencing the more than human world?
Barton: I hope they leave with a renewed sense of connection, both to themselves and to the world around them. Even a small recognition of how alive and intelligent the nonhuman world can be transformative.
If the work invites someone to feel more attuned, more open, or more held by the wider field of life, then that is enough. My hope is simply that the work meets viewers wherever they are and offers moments of presence and pleasure.
