Artist Reception: Barbara Masterson

Join artist Barbara Masterson, friends, and LGBTQ Center staff and supporters for the opening reception of Migrant Workers: People of the Fields (on display from March 26th through May 11th). Light refreshments will be served.

From the artist:
In 2015, I was plein air painting when migrant workers came into view. I gestured them into my paintings. As time went on these shapes became much more. Their forms became individuals. My work transformed. In my paintings, my subjects sometimes look directly at the viewer. They are hard at work. They claim our attention.

These workers are our country’s invisible population, unseen despite planting, weeding, harvesting, and packing produce from April to November. Many are undocumented workers. These are the people that do the jobs that most Americans won’t do, yet who might face deportation under the new Washington administration.

Hard at work, they summon our attention and invite us to come closer, to see their labor and their humanity. Who are they? Can you see them? What is life like for them? What role do we play in keeping them unseen?

My work can expand our perceptions of these workers.

This project is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.