Teri Barnett

Teri Barnett is a native of Southeastern Michigan, and while she established herself in Indiana in the early 1980s, she continues to be inspired by the lakeshores of her birth state, the vastness of its northern forests and the movement of sand and stone.

Ancient textiles, shrines, icons, and quilts serve as touchstones for the color and form she uses in her paintings and design. Her most recent body of work, TimeKeepers, explores the magic of shamanic realms and life transitions.

Teri transitioned into the art world full time in 2006, after a successful career in interior design. Her commercial design work still provides inspiration for her paintings.

As a result, she often uses a minimalist approach, depicting images at their most basic expressions of shape, color, and texture. Contemporary representations of rocky lake beds against sandy shores, man-made structures and bright colored flowers figure prominently in her work.

Teri enjoys the business aspects of her career as well. “It is a business, and it needs to be if you are going to be successful in it,” she says. “Being creative and having a business are not mutually exclusive.”

She thinks the perception of what it means to be an Indiana artist is starting to change. “There are just fabulous artists in the state doing a lot of great stuff – traditional, impressionistic and contemporary – in a wide range of media,” she said.

An award winning artist, Teri’s paintings have been exhibited in the Indiana State Museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and many venues throughout the Midwest. Her work also is collected nationally and collections and commissions include Eli Lilly & Co., Franklin College, WellPoint, Rush Shelby Energy, NPCA, and Community Hospital East, among others.