Alannah Barker graduated in 2010 with a BA from the University of Creative Arts, Farnham. In 2007 she was asked to take part in the Sky Arts series “Mastering the Arts” which led to her pursuing an academic career in fine art. Although Alannah was always encouraged to explore the various media in art at University, drawing kept pulling her back and she eventually decided to centre her artistic practice on drawing. From her degree show Alannah was awarded the Guildford art@work Clyde&Co student award, leading to two exhibitions being granted to one artist for the first time in the history of this award.
“I believe drawing is one of the most important tools, being one of the first means of communication, most things start with a draughtsman, be it architecture, mathematics, cartographers or planners, although in the art world it has maintained a relation with the provisional and unfinished, this has begun to change. I have utilized the innocence of drawing as a means to produce my work because of the qualities graphite allows that paint cannot achieve. Many artists inspire me, I find the technical side of drawing captivating and it really helps me to get lost in the work.
I am interested in the way gravity affects the forms which the body and fabric on a figure can create whilst mid fall, the space between joy and fear, which is a fascinating formal construction. The drawings concentrate on the shape and positioning of the figures to free the mind of clichés of the physical world and challenge the imagination of the audience. The drawings do not strive to achieve photographic quality, instead the aim is to reassert the viewer to the handmade quality of the image, each image of the figure on first appearance looks the same, but on closer inspection there are subtle differences. The work is strongly related to Busby Berkeley choreography; making the pieces feel as it they are frozen fragments in time.”
