On View April 17th through June 28th, 2026

BIG SKIES, OPEN ROADS: BY KAYLA BARKER

ABOUT

Experience the vast beauty of the landscape through the lens of Midland-based artist Kayla Barker, whose work is shaped by both her West Texas roots and her global travels. In Big Skies, Open Roads, Barker pairs traditional film photography with encaustic techniques. Layering molten wax to add depth, texture, and a sense of memory to each image. The result is a body of work that feels both grounded in place and dreamlike in atmosphere, capturing the quiet poetry of open highways, wide horizons, and the spaces in between.

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Kayla Barker is an award-winning and published film photographer based in Midland, Texas that travels around the world for her commissioned work. Kayla uses film cameras, old and new, that range from $40 to $4,000 as her medium to photograph places and details that inspire her. Kayla especially loves the nostalgic look of film for her work. 

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Her fine art film photography is available for purchase as signed limited edition fine art prints on museum quality fine art Hahnemule photo rag paper. Each print is signed and numbered by Kayla Barker and comes with a certificate of authenticity.

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Kayla also offers her photography as wax infused photographs which are encapsulated with a mixture of hot beeswax and tree sap and enhanced with oil paint. This process, known as encaustic, is one of the oldest forms of painting. Kayla uses encaustic to fuse together her realistic view of the world and parts of her imagination. She layers and distorts the wax to bring texture, depth and feeling to her photographs and art.

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Small glimpses captured on film and forever documented in how they existed at that time, Kayla’s artwork is an expression of how she views the world. Through her work, she lets the past continue to live on and evoke emotions in the present.