Cassandra C. Barney
Cassandra Christensen Barney is an American artist. She is the daughter of renowned artist James C. Christensen. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Christensen family lived in Europe for a time while Barney was a child, and her father took her and her siblings to art museums. Like her father, she uses the language of symbolism to communicate ideas. “I paint portraits that share my passion for storytelling while revealing my personal journey of transition and discovery. . . . My portraits may not always feature the outwardly pretty or majestic, but they all share a quiet beauty that asks us to listen and to feel.”[1]
At Brigham Young University, she earned her BFA degree in painting and Art Education and her MFA degree in Visual Arts.
Barney, her sister artist Emily McPhie, and their father shared an art exhibit, “Curiouser and Curiouser,” at the Springville Museum of Art (Utah) from December 2013 through April 2014. They also worked together on a 2009 exhibit titled, “Hortus Conclusus, or The Enclosed Garden,” which was housed at the Art Access Gallery in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Barney’s work is exhibited and sold throughout the United States. Her original work can be seen in the Coda Gallery (New York City, Palm Desert, and Park City), the Heritage Gallery (Cannon Beach, Oregon), the Greenwich Workshop (Fairfield, Connecticut), Gallery 601 (Boise, Idaho), and Windowbox Gallery in Provo, Utah.
Her “Ex Votos” collection is an ongoing effort. She encourages people to write to her and share their own stories. She paints a representation of those personal stories that she calls “offerings of thanksgiving for an unexpected miracle.”
She is married to Dan Barney, who is an artist and teacher. They have three daughters and live in Utah. She is currently part-time faculty at Brigham Young University and has taught at The Waterford School.
She assisted her father on the mural in one of the instruction rooms of the Provo City Center Temple.
