BRISTOL.- Following a hugely successful inaugural run at the Whitworth in Manchester, Arnolfini presents Barbara Walker: Being Here for Spring 2025.

Described as one of the most important British artists working today, Being Here charts Walker’s compelling figurative practice, from the 1990s to today. Walker’s wide ranging formal experimentation in painting, drawing and embossed print techniques critically engages with social justice and belonging, transforming Black presence in contemporary society and throughout history.

Walker is celebrated for her sensitively rendered drawings, grounded in extensive periods of research. From delicate pencil drawings on archival documents to monumentally scaled wall charcoal drawings, she uses the most traditional of techniques to give powerful presence to the conditions of our time and the histories they are rooted in. Playing with techniques of visibility and erasure, such as enlarging, cutting, obscuring and blanking out, she challenges conventions of representation to ask what it means to be seen and who and what is remembered. Intensely observed and empathetic, her work brings forth themes of body politics, power and citizenship.

The exhibition brings together all of Walker’s major series of works beginning with early vividly coloured paintings from Private Face (1998 to 2002) depicting intimate moments of her family and wider communities in Birmingham; to Louder than Words (2006 to 2009) which presents a tender series of mixed media drawings on police dockets and newspaper articles made in response to her son being repeatedly stopped and searched by police.

Reflecting Walker’s research driven practice, Shock and Awe (2015 to 2020) foregrounds the overlooked contributions of Black servicemen and women to contemporary and historic war efforts, using techniques of erasure such as blind embossing to disrupt the archive. Vanishing Point (2018 to present) and Marking the Moment (2021 to present) engage with European Old Master paintings, transforming the historic image to spotlight the once marginalised Black figure, creating alternative ways of seeing for a new generation.

Walker’s Turner Prize nominated series Burden of Proof (2022 to 2023), commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation with the support of the Whitworth, imbues a sense of humanity and reverence to the Caribbean-born individuals impacted by the Windrush scandal.

A major wallpaper installation, Soft Power (2024) further spotlights these histories and the artist’s continued experimentation with materials. Inspired by the Whitworth’s internationally renowned collections of textiles and wallpapers and the history of French Toile de Jouy design, Walker has created an enveloping patterned wallpaper environment featuring Windrush communities in Manchester alongside landscape and decorative elements.

Barbara Walker, artist, says: “To be an artist to create in times of adversity, is, I believe to be optimistic. In my work as an artist, I have sought to make ‘positive images’, or perhaps images that will have a positive impact. I love working with people who are not used to having their voices heard. People who are often made visible in only the worst ways. I want to help make people visible in the best ways possible, by creating affirming images that speak of and to humanity.”

Barbara Walker MBE, RA (born 1964, Birmingham, UK) is a British artist described by art historian Eddie Chambers as “one of the most talented, productive and committed artists of her generation.” Walker studied Art and Design at the University of Central England, Birmingham (1993-96) and Wolverhampton University (2003 to 2004). She has had regular solo shows throughout her career including at Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham (2002, 2007, 2016); Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2018); and Turner Contemporary, Margate (2019 to 2021). Her work has been included in over sixty group presentations since 1995, most recently: The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, National Portrait Gallery, London (2024); Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (2023); Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023); Life Between Islands, Caribbean - British Art, 50s to Now, Art Gallery Ontario, Canada (2023) and Tate Britain (2021) and Lahore Biennale 02: Between the Sun and the Moon (2020). In 2023 Walker was nominated for the Turner Prize and elected to the Royal Academy of Arts.

In 2021 the Whitworth acquired three works from Walker’s Shock and Awe series (2015 to 2020). Her work is held in public collections including Arts Council Collection, UK; British Museum, UK; Government Art Collection, UK; Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Tate, UK; and Yale Center for British Art, USA.