Barbara Walker MBE, RA, is a British artist based in Birmingham, UK. Current and forthcoming institutional exhibitions include Being Here, the first major survey of the artist’s work, organised by The Whitworth, Manchester, UK, where it was on view 4 October 2024–26 January 2025, and Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, where it is on view 8 March–25 May 2025, and the group exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition on view at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), UK, 19 April–13 July 2025.

Completed during a recent residency with Victoria Miro gallery in Venice, this new body of work features self-portraits created in dialogue with Old Masters and the experience of being an anonymous figure immersed in the city.

Described by the art historian Eddie Chambers as ‘one of the most talented, productive and committed artists of her generation’, Barbara Walker is acclaimed for works that tell contemporary stories hinged on historical circumstances, often employing portraiture to invite the viewer to look beyond anonymising acts of categorisation. The issues central to Walker’s practice of belonging, power, visibility and representation are here turned inwards as the artist spent extended time in Venice, negotiating her relationship to the Old Master works she viewed in museums such as the Ca’Rezzonico, in tandem with the experience of being an anonymous figure in a city of endlessly shifting light, water and reflection.

The exhibition remains on view until 3rd May 2025.

Image: Portrait of Barbara Walker, Venice, 2025. Photography: Héctor Chico