Community is at the heart of Erin Barry-Dutro’s creative practice. A printmaker, installation artist, and designer living and working in Baltimore, Maryland, group building is the core tenet that connects all of her art practices. Conducting print exchanges during her time at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, where she studied Painting and Printmaking, and today via her Baltimore-based printmaking studio, Shinyfresh Press, has enabled Erin to establish a strong network.
Currently, Erin works on the Studio Art MFA program at Towson University, where she is expected to graduate in Fall 2026, and also teaches an introductory printmaking course. Shinyfresh Press is home to a Dickerson Combination press and can accommodate etching, lithography, silkscreen, and monotyping. Thus, her printmaking practice focuses primarily on silkscreen monotypes and monoprints, especially portraiture, and she creates variable editions that highlight the unpredictability and versatility of the monotyping medium. Recently, Erin has been focusing on the combination of printmaking and dimensionality, printing monotypes on fabric and combining those prints with other fabrics, quilting, yarn, and hand embellishments, and layering them into her installation work.
These installations often feature tent-like structures, referencing both humanity’s long history with these temporary protective spaces, and her community, which is largely composed of individuals who attend regional Burning Man events. The installations feature audio clips from interviews conducted within this community that showcase a multiplicity of viewpoints around the topics of safety, change, support, and equity. Borrowing from the design conventions of a number of world religions, especially the Roman Catholicism that Erin was raised in during her early childhood, the works suggest that these spaces and conversations are of great spiritual importance. Implementing “shocking” fluorescent colours which catch the attention of her audience, Erin’s works encourage a feeling of childlike wonder, much like Roman Catholic cathedrals hoped to instil a feeling of awe in their congregations.
@erinbarrydutro
www.shinyfresh.com
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