12jb Dark Shimmer, Jo Barker ,
wool, cotton and embroidery threads, 34” x 29.25” x 1.25”, 2017, $12,000
11jb Flow, Jo Barker
cotton, wool, woven, linen, silk and embroidery threads, 28.5” x 54”, 2015, $14,800
10jb Lime Glow Jo Barker
woven on cotton warp using wool, cotton, linen, sik and embroidery threads, 28.75" x 30.75", 2010, $8,900
woven on cotton warp using wool, cotton, linen, sik and embroidery threads, 41" x 67.25", 2009, $22,900
8jb Drift, Jo Barker
cotton, wool, woven, linen, silk and embroidery threads, 41" x 50", 2008, $16,500
Selected collections and exhibition venues:
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh (Current Context: New Ways of Seeing); Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; New Jersey Arts Center, Summit (Threads: Fiber Art in the 90s); Barbican Centre, London, England (Woven Image: Contemporary British Tapestry, traveling exhibition); Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland (Pan-Euro Mini-Tex Threads, traveling exhibition); Aberdeen City Art Gallery and Museum (Jo Barker and Friends); Young Artists Studio, Budapest, Hungary (Material Diversity); Kunst Museum of Modern Art, Aalborg, Denmark; Deutsches Textil-museum, Krefeld, Germany; Textile Museum, Tilburg, the Netherlands (European Tapestry Forum: Artapestry1, traveling exhibition); House of Lords, London, UK (three-tapestry commission); Royal Victory Infirmary, Newcastle, UK (commission); City Art Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Statement:
My work reflects a long-term interest in color and its emotional impact on the viewer. I work on small designs that combine a gestural use of drawing, painting and collage. These become the guidelines for translation into woven tapestries. I aim to recreate and capture the immediacy of these marks. My tapestries have combinations of painterly areas; flat planes of color; drawn and printed marks. The images create illusions of space, depth of field or movement. I then change materials and techniques and work with soft, pliable yarns and threads to construct the image in warp and weft, weaving and carefully interlocking the tones and colors.
The medium of tapestry has a unique presence and sensuality. For me it lends itself to the use of intense color and provides a richness of surface texture which is very different from paint. Once a woven fabric is made from the yarns the light is absorbed rather than reflected creating a far denser, more sumptuous quality.
Jo Barker
