Carving Time: T Barny Celebrates 45 Years of Sculpture with Santa Fe Show
His work is elegant and mysterious — arcs of bronze and marble that loop in endless movement, as if defying gravity or reason. Now, the artist is celebrating his remarkable milestone in one of the country’s most beloved art destinations: Santa Fe, New Mexico.
On September 5, T Barny opens a new exhibition at Victory Contemporary, nestled in the historic Delgado House on West Palace Avenue. The show—shared with abstract painter Poteet Victory—marks the next chapter in a career that has always flowed forward with bold intention and quiet persistence.
“I graduated from RISD in 1980,” he says, “and I never looked back. I’ve been a full-time sculptor ever since.”
Such unwavering focus is rare. Even rarer is the breadth of his work: over 1,000 sculptures created in materials ranging from alabaster and calcite to bronze and stainless steel. Many of his forms center on the Möbius strip—a continuous shape with only one edge and one side. It's a concept T Barny fell in love with in the third grade when his teacher handed him a strip of paper, twisted and taped at the ends. The discovery was profound.
“There was something about that infinite surface that stuck with me,” he recalls. “It was beautiful and mysterious. That’s what sculpture still is for me.”
This Santa Fe show is personal. T Barny has been exhibiting in the city for 36 of his 45 years, beginning in 1989 when abstract sculpture was far less common in the region. “My first gallery here, Presden, felt that my forms brought something new to the Southwest,” he says. “They paired well with the colors and shapes of painters and ceramicists working in the area, even though my work is nonrepresentational.”
Santa Fe has since become a place where his work is deeply appreciated—and where he connects with collectors from around the world. “It’s really a crossroads,” he says. “People who come here are curious, adventurous. They understand that art isn’t just decorative, and I love being part of that.”
The setting at Victory Contemporary offers something special. “The gallery is inside a historic house, so you see the work in rooms with furniture, with windows—real-world settings,” he says. “That helps people imagine sculpture as part of their own environment.”
T Barny’s CIRCO with two of Poteet Victory’s paintings.
And, in perfect harmony with T Barny is the work of Poteet Victory, whose paintings are vibrant, symbolic, and often draw on his Cherokee-Choctaw heritage. His Abbreviated Portrait Series, which distills facial features into bold, graphic abstraction, stands in rich dialogue with T Barny’s smooth, endless curves. The two artists create a show that vibrates with movement, meaning, and presence. “Poteet’s paintings carry such energy,” T Barny says. “They’re grounded in identity and culture. My forms are grounded in motion and flow. Together, there’s this rhythm—it just works.”