(1969 – )

Hedwig Barry
Contemporary
Overview

Working from Cape Town, South Africa, Hedwig Barry (b. 1969) uses drawing, painting and sculpture to make artworks that explore the politics of love, desire, care, and the matter of destruction and repair. Having established a long career as a producer, director and educator across artistic disciplines, Barry began to focus on her artistic practice in 2019 and has since then worked with steady momentum, producing works for private and public contexts.

 Through a language beyond figuration, Barry explores the metaphors of “grounding” and “groundlessness”, engaging deeply with the historical weight of painting and its ties to nature, empire, modernity and Western aesthetics. She sees her practice as a coming together of the personal and the public, the emotional and the intellectual, and the bodies, grounds, materials, desires and gestures which give meaning to these relationships.

 Barry has an MA in Fine Arts (cum laude) from the University of the Witwatersrand (2020), and through a collaboration between Wits and BMW she was commissioned to create two site-specific sculptures for the BMW headquarters in Midrand, South Africa (2021). Her work is included in both South African and international private collections, with her first institutional acquisition being the large-scale outdoor public sculpture Crumple (Jeanette Schoon) (2021), incorporated into the Constitutional Court of South Africa Art Collection in 2022. In 2023, Barry showed with Guns & Rain at RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg, and at ARCO Lisboa, and presented a solo exhibition, Unrest. In 2024 Barry presented work at the Cape Town Investec International Art Fair and participated in a number of group exhibitions.

Education

2019
MA Fine Arts (cum laude), Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

2018
Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) (cum laude), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. 

1992
Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts, University of Pretoria

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions and Residencies

2026
(forthcoming, residency) Ampersand Fellowship, New York City

2023
Unrest (exhibition), Guns and Rain, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022
Here Is Where We Meet (exhibition), Nirox Sculpture Park, curated by Anthea Buys

2022
Artist-in-residence, Tswalu Foundation, Northern Cape, South Africa

2021-2022
Artist-in-residence, Nirox Sculpture Park, Cradle of Humankind

2020
How the Ornithologist Becomes a Bird, Wits School of Arts, Johannesburg

Group Exhibitions

2024
Hallowed Ground,  the gallery
The Un-turning Wheel, Latitudes Centre for the Arts
Refuse the Given World, Kalashnikov

2023 
African Art Galleries Now, Artsy, Guns & Rain

2022
Time is a Broken Umbrella, KZNSA, Durban, and Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town
Spier Light Art Festival, Stellenbosch, curated by Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather

2021
Divided Self, Kalashnikovv Gallery, Johannesburg
Emergence, Forms Gallery (online)
The Late Summer Exhibition, gallery gallery, Johannesburg

2020
Groundless, Mezzanine, Johannesburg

Art Fairs

2026
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Graham Contemporary 

2024
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Guns and Rain

2023
ARCO Lisboa, Guns and Rain
RMB Latitudes Art Fair, Johannesburg, Guns and Rain

2023 
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Church Projects

2022 
Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg and online with Artsy, Forms Gallery

2021 
Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg and online with Artsy, Forms Gallery

2020
Turbine Art Fair (online) Graduates Invitational

Collections

Art Collection of the Constitutional
Court of South Africa
BMW Headquarters, Munich
BMW South Africa
IDASA and Yellowwoods
Spier Arts Trust
Various private collections

Commissions

2022
Night Crumple  Spier Light Art Festival

2021
Love Letter for the Lost Travellers, BMW South Africa

2020
Crumple, Aluminium and Automotive Paint BMW South Africa

Featured Artwork