MALENE BARNETT
ICON OF TOMORROW
Malene Barnett is a multidisciplinary artist who threads memory, material and culture into powerful, contemporary work. Born in the Caribbean diaspora and based in Brooklyn, she draws on African and diasporic pattern language to shape ceramics, woven portraits and installations that feel both intimate and monumental.
Her path spans fashion textiles to an MFA in ceramics at Tyler School of Art, a Fulbright researching African-Jamaican ceramic traditions, and exhibitions at leading museums. The surfaces are incised, layered, rhythmic; the stories are precise and deeply felt.
Barnett also builds community. She founded the Black Artists + Designers Guild to connect and champion Black makers, and her 2024 book, Crafted Kinship, amplifies the voices of more than 60 contemporary Black Caribbean artists. The throughline is care: for craft, for lineage, for the future these works make possible.
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