Biography
About The Artist:
Ruth Barker is a Glasgow-based artist originally from Leeds, in the North of England. She completed a first class BA (Hons) in Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art in 2001, and an MFA (Master of Fine Art) at GSA in 2004.
From a background in site and context specific practice, Barker's most recent work has been primarily text and performance based. She produces work for galleries as well as for more public locations and sees a balance between the permanent public commissions she's worked on (often civic memorials), and her essentially ephemeral, transient performative work.
Recent projects include performance commissions for Edinburgh Art Festival and public sites in Glasgow; and the design of the first permanent British war memorial to commemorate non-combatants killed in conflict. The Choir Loft is a grade II listed monument, and is sited beside the Cenotaph in Blackpool, UK. Upcoming projects include a 10 month Leverhulme Residency at Intersections (based at the University of Newcastle, UK), and a performance at Joseph Weissman Gallery, Givaataim, Israel; and V.I.P. Gallery, Belgrade (both 2010).
About The Work:
Ruth Barker's performance work involves scripting and memorising substantial literary monologues that draw on classical or mythological narratives, but remake them as resonant, current, events. She uses traditional techniques of mnemonic and storytelling to create challenging new performance works in a visual arts context.
Barker understands the act of mythmaking and storytelling as ways of describing the fundamentals of the human condition – acts which are able to influence as well as describe our knowledge of self and imagination. Drawing on works by literary theorists such as Susan Stewart, Marina Warner, Lewis Hyde, and Jaques Derrida, and the poets Ted Hughes, Kathy Acker, and Simon Armitage, Barker relates ideas of narrative structures, repetition, and metamorphosis, to the vivid quality of the live, present female artist.
The re-making of the mythic space of performance becomes a gesture towards the ritual and/or artistic understanding of self, gender, and mortality. Barker's works are recited, without notes, before a live audience and are often composed for specific contexts. This act of recall is a feat of endurance; emotionally loaded and reliant on a concentrated focus that becomes by turns hypnotic, claustrophobic, and cathartic.
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Year of Birth: 1979
Place of Birth: Leeds
Lives and Works: Glasgow
Education:
2002 – 2004 Glasgow School of Art - MFA (Master of Fine Art)
1998 – 2001 Glasgow School of Art - BA Honours (1st Class with Distinction) in Fine Art, specialising in Environmental Art
Current Positions
Website Editor - PAR+RS (Public Art Resource and Research Scotland) / Freelance, contracted by SAC
Host / Facilitator - Detours (a talk series organised by The Common Guild and CASC - The Centre for Art in Social Contexts)
Recent Positions
Project Curator - Washington Garcia Gallery (2007 - 2009)
Co-founder and Co-director - Trajectory Publications (2001 - 2006)
Co-founder and Co-director - Something Haptic (2001 - 2006)
Core Group Member - Working In Public Seminar Series (On The Edge Research, Grays School of Art, Aberdeen / Suzanne Lacy)
Host & Speaker - SPIN Glasgow (Contemporary Art Tours) (2006 - 2008)
Board Member - Glasgow Sculpture Studios (2007 - 2008)
Current:
2010
Low Metamorphosis (10 month Leverhulme Residency)
Centre for Interdisciplinary Artefact Studies, University of Newcastle, England.
(As Yet Untitled)
V.I.P. Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia
Recent:
2010
To Mithras
Carrawburgh Mithraeum, Northumberland
How We Can Open The Lotus
Machon Hamayim, Givaataim, Israel (Part of Oversees, curated by Orly Hoffman)
Odysseus and the Sirens
CIAS, Newcastle
I Am Odysseus
(Sym-po-zeum), Mitchell Library, Glasgow International Festival
Odysseus and the Sirens
In 12 Acts, Project Room, Glasgow
Odysseus and the Sirens
Rough Mix (Dir. Nick Bone), Edinburgh
2009
The Deer Woman
Lady Gaby's Wonderbar, Berlin
The Deer Woman
Kottbusser Tor, Berlin
In The Beginning (Record Launch)
Centre for Contemporary Art / Aye Aye Books, Glasgow
The Deer Woman
'Temporary Nature', curated by Allison Gibbs, Pacific Quay, Glasgow
Orpheus and Eurydice
Stills Gallery, Edinburgh
Orpheus and Eurydice
Edinburgh Arts Festival Commission
In The Beginning
Saint Vincent Street, Glasgow
As Pages Turned and Ink Was Spilt
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
2008
Octagon Upon Octagon
(Art-Site-Audience) Tramway, Glasgow
Salem
Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
There's No Invisible Disguise That Lasts All Day
A. Vermin, Glasgow
2007
Crime Scene
Galerie Adler, Frankfurt
Weirding and The Uncanny
Curated by Levi Haines, Newbery Gallery, Glasgow
Songs With Dirty Words
Galerie Box, Iceland
The Shores of the Familiar (launch)
CCA: Glasgow
2006 / 2007 Nominated for Jerwood Platform
Recent Public Artworks and Commissions:
2008
The Choir Loft
Lead Artist
Blackpool Cenotaph.
Permanent memorial. Commissioned by Blackpool Council.
2007
The Shores of the Familiar
Lead Artist
Cowcaddens Pedestrian Underpass, Glasgow
Permanent work project managed by RMJM architects.
2006
THE FUTURE
Project Artist and researcher
lead artist - Peter McCaughey
Working with the community of Winchburgh towards a permanent work or intervention in the upcoming large-scale residential development.
Signing the Ways
Project Artist and researcher
lead artist - Peter McCaughey
Permanent public work for the Riverside Housing Development.
Ideas Move Away From Abstraction
Lead artist
Garden between Scottish Storytelling Centre and John Knox’s house, Edinburgh.
Temporary work.
Placed Upon The Horizon
Joint lead artist
South Lanarkshire Council
Collaboration with Niall Macdonald.
If Strength of Body Be
Lead artist
New Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh
Short-listed for permanent work. (this work is proposed only)
2005
Romeo and Juliet
Lead artist
Plaza Building, Glasgow
Temporary work.
This Place Then, Or Some Other?
Lead artist.
Glasgow Underground
Temporary work commissioned for Glasgow international ’05.
2004
Bromeliad
Lead artist
Botanic Gardens, Glasgow
Permanent memorial for the Queen Mother.