Image: Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha
Sadie Barnette’s exhibition opens Aug. 1, 2026, at Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha and runs through Jan. 3, 2027 in the Riley CAP Gallery in Scott Pavilion. The presentation centers on a recorded moment Barnette discovered on a doorbell security camera and builds a small group of new works around it, linking personal memory with broader questions of storytelling, witness and family lore.
According to the museum, Barnette works across drawing, sculpture, photography and installation, using those media to examine how personal narratives and collective histories intersect and diverge over the course of a life. In this exhibition, the catalyst is a short black-and-white video of the artist’s father removing helium balloons from the trunk of a car. As one heart-shaped balloon drifts away, the footage turns an ordinary errand into a layered scene about affection, attention and the meaning that can accumulate around fleeting events.
The video is presented as 'I DIDN’T MAKE ART ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU WERE A BLACK PANTHER I MADE ART ABOUT YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE MY DAD', and it serves as the foundation for the rest of the installation. Barnette’s approach, as described by Joslyn, treats the camera recording as an overlooked episode that can sustain multiple readings rather than a single anecdote. The exhibition draws that interpretation outward, framing a brief domestic episode as material for reflection on family relationships and the stories people tell about themselves and one another.
The show also includes a sculpture titled 'Mom', made from machined and hand-sanded ash wood. Joslyn notes that the work points to a figure who is absent from the video yet central to the family story, extending Barnette’s practice of giving words and phrases physical form. At just over five feet high, the sculpture turns language into an object with weight and volume, while maintaining the artist’s focus on text as a sculptural material.
A second sculptural work, 'Gentle People’s Bench', invites visitors to sit and reflect. Barnette engraves the wood surface with references to family, hearts and ornamental flourishes, continuing the exhibition’s movement between intimate imagery and abstracted symbolism. The final component, a drawing titled 'Dots', is rendered so carefully that it can be mistaken for a mechanically produced image. In the gallery, it offers a less illustrative counterpoint to the video and sculpture, using abstraction to open up associations that the museum says may suggest confetti or cake decorations.
Joslyn’s exhibition text emphasizes that the works open “multiple entry points” into the story of the missing balloon, encouraging visitors to notice the significance of seemingly unremarkable moments. Barnette’s installation arrives alongside other summer exhibitions at the museum, but it is positioned as a distinct presentation in the Riley CAP Gallery, distinct in medium and focus from the museum’s photography and print exhibitions elsewhere in the building. The exhibition is on view at Joslyn Art Museum from Aug. 1, 2026, to Jan. 3, 2027.
