The Loeb is proud to present a short documentary with local artist Julia Whitney Barnes. Julia’s work  was  displayed in “The Botanist at Vassar” from April 4–October 4, 2026. She also created “The Botanist Mural,” a room-sized, site-specific mural commissioned for Vassar’s Heartwood/Institute of the Liberal Arts.
 

This documentary was edited, directed and produced by Luca Pereira Frears | August 2026.
 

Julia Whitney Barnes is an artist living in Poughkeepsie, NY who works in a variety of media from cyanotypes, watercolor, gouache, oil paintings, stained glass, murals, and site-specific installations. Whitney Barnes is the recipient of fellowships from the New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Arts Mid-Hudson, Abbey Memorial Fund for Mural Painting/National Academy of Fine Arts, and the Gowanus Public Art Initiative, among others. She completed two significant commissions in 2024 including an immersive double sided glass artwork for Public Art for Public Schools/NYC Percent for Art in Brooklyn, NY and a room-wide mural for the new Vassar College Institute in Poughkeepsie, NY in 2024. In 2025 she created a wraparound exterior mural in Cambridge, MA based on local flora and inspired by the famous 19th century glass flowers in the collection of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.