Garry Barker: Votive conversations

Garry Barker is an artist who draws narratives about the fact he finds the world he lives in a very strange place. He is also getting older and worries a lot about what it is he does.

"My practice is centred on listening to people and drawing. For many years I have walked the streets making observational drawings and as I encounter people I engage them in conversation. Out of these conversations I try to construct images that are designed to reflect on what these encounters reveal about the society I live in. Because I’m concerned that what I find out is useful to others, I try to think about the images I develop as being allegorical in intent, usually as reflections about life that are based on people’s experiences.

My work has been mainly focused on large-scale narrative drawings that emerge as a way of locating the issues that come out of conversations, but it also includes ceramics, printmaking, painting, wallpaper design, textiles, writings, installation and game design. I have recently been getting much more interested in stories told to me about people’s mental and physical health, especially as they face the process of aging, concerns that overlap with my own thoughts as an artist who is also getting older. As part of this process I have returned to perhaps the oldest art form we know of, the making of votives.

As an aid to developing conversations about health and the way we think about our bodies, I have also been working with older people to develop a pack of cards. After a first set of conversations I designed a pack of cards based on parts of the body and then used the pack to begin trials as to how people would use them. The feedback from these trials then enabled me to re-design the cards as a sort of alternative tarot. This is an on-going project, and will be developed further as the work has been selected as a micro commission for the #BeyondMeasure project, organised by the Cultural Institute at the University of Leeds.

The themes that I use to reflect on what is happening around me are developed from people’s concerns that they reveal as they talk to me. I have had conversations that I have then used to make work about migration, getting older, memory loss, various health issues, the problems with plastic waste, drug taking, why we treat animals so badly, and of course I have had several conversations lately about the effects of coronavirus.

The media that I use if not drawing based is more often than not ceramics. I find clay wonderfully flexible and use it to both make observations and to create allegorical imagery. In solidifying my thoughts it has continued to be the main media for making, publicly sited pieces. Clay can freeze thought, and like drawing, it can capture the flow of an idea as it escapes the mind and allows images to communicate both a sense of a focused idea and the fact that nothing is static, that all is in flux.

However as ideas grow they sometimes suggests other media. For instance, for themes that tend to recur or feel as if they are always ongoing, I have made animations. As ways to engage people's attention, I have designed and produced various board and card games. I have also worked in textiles to produce various outputs that required a more tactile relationship, including headscarves, wall coverings and tapestries.

Covid-19 has made me very thoughtful and has not only been the main subject of recent conversations, but the pandemic has also had an impact on my dreams. Therefore in many ways, Covid-19 has intensified the images that I have been working with recently, many of them taken directly from dreams and therefore I have been using intense, saturated colour for the first time in many years."

You can see more of Garry's work and writing at http://fineartdrawinglca.blogspot.com. He also tweets at @garrybarker3.

CuratorSpace are currently featuring articles by artists, curators and organisations who want to share their experiences of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, whether that is artists using their practice as a way of exploring new boundaries of isolation, or as a way to connect more broadly with their communities. We are also interested in hearing from curators and organisations who are offering support to artists and audiences during this time.

Contact us at louise@curatorspace.com to share your story.
 

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