Barry Whittaker is a multi-media artist, designer, musician, and Associate Professor of Art at the University of Toledo. He teaches graphic and interactive design, is an Associate Curator and board member for Denver Digerati, a member of the Art in Public Places Committee of the Toledo Arts Commission, a University Advisory Committee member with the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, and recently completed a 3-year term as the Education Co-chair and board member for the Toledo chapter of AIGA.
As an artist, Whittaker explores mythology, language, miscommunication, cultural hybridization, and play through a variety of technology- and collaboration-based projects. In addition to museum and gallery exhibitions across the world, he has created numerous works for outdoor LED screens in Denver, Colorado, has curated a Great Lakes Region component of the 2019 Supernova festival for display on a large outdoor screen in Toledo, Ohio, and has organized an annual exhibition of his students’ artwork on digital billboards throughout Toledo since 2012. Whittaker has ongoing collaborations with Sam Sheffield, full-time faculty of Game Design at the Maryland Institute College of Art, creating interactive installations and games under the name “SaBa,” 2D images and installations with Michael Bernhardt, Associate Professor of Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver, under the name “Barchael,” and performances and multi-media installations with independent artist Donald Fodness and Michael Bernhardt under the name “The DMB Collective.”
Whittaker has taught in the U.S., France, China, and Japan, and his work has been exhibited extensively across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Selected exhibitions include: ArtFarming a collaborative project with the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, Japan; Hors Pistes Japon, organized by the Centre Pompidou and presented in Tokyo, Japan; Throwing Things at the Sky, which opened at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan; #TAGGING ART#, an exhibition and print project through Vision Magazine, Shanghai, China; Supernova Digital Animation Festival, Denver, Colorado; STROBE Network, at FLUX Factory, Long Island City, NY; and Playpublik at FORUM, Krakow, Poland.
A native Texan, Barry Whittaker received a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He divides his time between his home in Toledo, Ohio, and Nara, Japan.
