Julia Whitney Barnes is a Brooklyn-based mixed media artist. Her site-specific mural, Canal Species (2008), is based on Gowanus Canal wildlife, including a duck, gull, heron, goose, egret, crabs, flounder, shrimp, mussels, killfish, jellyfish, and raccoon. By depicting canal wildlife, she stresses the possibilities for natural habitation of the canal region and a reversal of the canal’s reputation as a former factory dumping zone. She created the mural at her studio located in a large converted factory building along the Gowanus Canal.
Julia Whitney Barnes earned her Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Hunter College and Bachelor of Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design.