Johannes Barfield
Johannes Barfield is an American visual and sound artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans installation, video, photography, extended reality, collage, and music. His work explores themes of childhood memories, joy, extinction, and the music played at family cookouts, often delving into cultural restitution and speculative futures. Born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Barfield earned his Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).
Now based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Barfield is an assistant professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches art and humanities. He is an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited at renowned institutions, including the Greenville Museum of Art, where he presented MARAUDERS, a three-person show alongside Antoine Williams and Donté K. Hayes, exploring future artifacts, new mythologies, and cultural restitution. His recent exhibitions include The Sun Rises Spite of Everything at Davidson College, which featured artists such as Pope.L, Alexandra Bell, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Reckoning and Resilience at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, a group exhibition addressing themes of identity, loss, remembrance, trauma, and healing.
Barfield’s artistic achievements have earned him numerous awards, fellowships, and residencies, including the Mint Museum Atrium Health Award, the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, the Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts Black Public Media Residency, the Merriweather District AIR Residency, the Fine Arts Work Center Visual Artist Fellowship, Lighthouse Works Fellowship, ACRE Residency, MASS MoCA Residency, and a VCU “10 Under 10” award recognizing distinguished alumni. His work has been exhibited in institutions such as the Nasher Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, the PAAM Museum of Art, Van Every|Smith Galleries, 1708 Gallery, and Circle Contemporary, among others.
Barfield is currently developing a speculative science-fiction narrative centered on Pilot Coaltrain, a former archaeologist tasked with returning looted artifacts in a distant future shaped by a dying sun and portal transportation technology. Through this and other projects, he continues to push the boundaries of art, storytelling, and culture.
