Mandy Barker

 

Mandy Barker is an award winning artist who is known for her powerful images capturing marine debris that she has collected and photographed over a span of 13 years, raising awareness about plastic pollution and gaining global recognition. 

Barker’s work was one of my main motives to do this project; her images are so impactful and shocking as they expose one of the biggest threats to the ocean ecosystems and we are always overlooking it; the government gives us a false sense of comfort that they are doing something to stop it while big brands greenwash their products to divert our attention from the truth. It seems to now be in the hands of creatives like Barker to reveal the true scale of this crisis.

At a first glance the images are very beautiful and their vastness reminds me of photos of space taken by NASA; I think this visual appeal is crucial in getting as much attention as possible - people are drawn to a beautiful image before realising what they’re looking at, and by this point Barker has already successfully captured an audience to educate. To think that her photographs only capture a small fraction of the amount of plastic in the ocean is horrifying and sad and I really hope that she has made a difference with her work.  

When I went to Cornwall, Barker’s work is what made me feel encouraged to collect plastic at the beach, and I displayed what I found with the rest of my work when we presented our progress in the HE lounge; I feel that although my art is not such a direct reference to litter it still comes from the same ideas and values as Barker’s. In terms of imagery I can draw a parallel between our work as both depict discarded single-use objects from everyday life that have low status and our work both elevates the aesthetic qualities of them, especially through use of multiples/ repetition and presentation.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

29.1.21 - Objects in the Bath and Shower

Image
One of the first things that came to mind when I got the re-arrangement brief was to do something with my collection of beanies. Because they are so colourful, I decided they should go against a plain background, so I cleaned the bath out and started filling it with the animals.  The first set of photos shows the animals in a random arrangement where I photographed them from different angles... For these close up images I placed the camera in the bath with the animals and blindly took the photographs, not knowing what the results would be. The flash came on for these pictures which makes the in-focus areas appear very sharp with a clear representation of the animals' surface textures. They also remind me of claw machines in arcades, which gives the images a nostalgic feel - all of these beanies were manufactured in the 1990's and early 2000's. This is the thing that opens and closes the plughole in the bath, and it created some strange reflections of the beanies which look
Read more

'Shades of Green' exhibition at St Mary's Church

Image
'Shades of Green' is a Nottingham city artists studio group exhibition, with various works about the longing to be in green spaces during lockdown and the artists reactions to isolation. My favourite was Karl Wilby's 3D piece with the whales and flowers. I think it's really clever how they seem to be floating in the air and are feeding from the flowers like humming birds, it's also really interesting to see whales represented in such a small scale, it's quite surreal and endearing. I like the contrast between the reflective coppery metal flowers and the matt turquoise whales which suggest the colour of oxidised copper, showing a transition from new to old - shiny to rusty - maybe also alluding to the endangerment of the species. There seems to be quite a strong connection between this piece and our fabricated nature project because of how naturalistic the whales are, when in fact they have been made through 3D printing which is as artificial as it gets. The meta
Read more

Mike Kelley Style Photoshoot

Image
  Mike Kelley's 'Ahh... Youth' piece inspired me to make my own version using old teddies from home, including some from my parent's childhood and some from my own - plus a recently acquired 90's troll doll from a car boot sale. I set up the studio lighting in a way that would reduce shadows behind the objects and used a white background like Kelley's image, which gives a professional atmosphere that  elevates them from being worn-out old creatures to something special and celebrity-like. I used a tripod so that they are all to scale with each other, and I like the empty space around them, it's like they have room to breathe and think. I also had to adjust the ISO, white balance and shutter speed on the camera to suit the light and conditions of the space, then I used manual focus to get the sharpness that allows you to see all the details and textures. After uploading the photos to the computer, I cropped them on photoshop and classified them into two separ
Read more