Joe Barrington
American
American, b. 1956
Joe Barrington was born in Throckmorton, TX in 1957. He received his BFA from Midwestern State University, and has exhibited widely throughout the west, and founded the Bone Yard Art Park, a nonprofit outdoor sculpture park in Throckmorton, TX, in 2005. His images are drawn from a lifetime of living in rural Texas. The people, animals and folklore are all an integral part of the stories he shares with the viewer.
"My granddad brought the first arc welder to Throckmorton County in the late 1930’s. My father started his welding business when he was only twenty years old. Dad gave me my first welding hood when I was two and a half years old, and naturally I grew up playing in his welding shop. Cutting, welding, and bending steel is in my blood, and then I discovered art."
Well known throughout the southwest, Barrington has received many commissions for public art projects. Recent ones include the Lake Ray Hubbard Transit Station for DART in Dallas; the Mesa Natural History Museum in Mesa, Arizona; the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and the City of Stamford, Texas for its Centennial celebration. His work is included in private and public collections including the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas.