Anna Barriball
'It is never only about the surface; it’s about the whole presence of the object and surface together. This is when it starts operating in a sculptural language.'
Working across a range of mediums, Anna Barriball (b. 1972, Plymouth) investigates how the aesthetics of everyday objects, from brick walls to windows, can be reimagined or transformed in unexpected ways. Much of her work generates a dialogue between surface and image, or appearance and sculptural form.
Light, memory and the history of photography are some of the abiding themes in her practice; examining the effect of light as it passes through and around objects, casting fleeting shadows and evoking distinct atmospheres. Barriball is interested in trying to capture or document such moments and reflections in her drawings, conscious too of the physicality of the materials she employs. In her most recent drawings, such as Studio window (blue fade) (2023–24) she recreates the effect of light as it passes through her studio window, referencing early image making techniques such as cyanotypes. These works are made by dusting powdered pastel onto paper, coating it in molten wax and are constructed in layers. In the smaller drawings such as the Seascape series (2022 -23), where Barriball tries to capture the ever-changing light and tones of a seascape, the semi-translucent coloured, waxed papers are layered onto a drawing made with graphite powder on paper.
The labour-intensive process transports each drawing into the sculptural realm, the surfaces preserving the mark of the artist’s hand in a fingerprint. Video is also a key medium for the artist, often employing colouring techniques of early cinema. Whether in still or time-based mediums, Barriball has an ongoing interest in how temporality, memory and the mechanics of sight all interact.
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Anna Barriball
Hospital Rooms Commission 9 Aug 2024Carbis Ward, Camborne Redruth Community Hospital, Cornwall Hospital Rooms have worked with Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to create artworks for the inpatient mental health...Read more -
Drawing Room Biennial 2024
Drawing Room, London 3 May 20243 May–3 July 2024 Online auction opens noon, 19 June Auction bidding ends 8pm, 3 July Anna Barriball, Tacita Dean, Callum Innes, Cornelia Parker and...Read more -
Anna Barriball
Frieze Review 4 Mar 2024'The works in this show represent an ultimately futile yet deeply human impulse: the desire to bend the fleeting nature of our existence to our...Read more -
Anna Barriball & Dr. Stephanie Straine
Artist Talk at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art 10 Mar 2023Conversations with the Collection | Anna Barriball and Dr Stephanie Straine (in person) Friday 10 March, 12.45–1.30pm Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern One)...Read more
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Anna Barriball & Dayanita Singh
Group Exhibition at 601 Artspace, New York 11 Jun 2022Slippage Until 31 August 2022 Borrowing from the fields of literature, psychology, and architecture, Slippage addresses ideas about indecision, privacy, home, and other states of...Read more -
Words and Images
Online Viewing Room 25 Jan 202225 January–27 February 2022 To mark Shilpa Gupta’s links to language and poetry, exemplified by her large-scale sound installation For, In Your Tongue, I Cannot...Read more -
Anna Barriball & Dirk Braeckman
Double Exhibition at KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin 22 Mar 202022 March–5 July 2020 KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin With the double exhibition by Anna Barriball and Dirk Braeckman in the Maschinenhaus M1,...Read more
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Alliances: Gallery Summer Show 5 Jul - 9 Aug 2024 Golden SquareFrith Street Gallery is delighted to present Alliances, a summer exhibition. This eclectic and playful show presents pairs of works by different gallery artists. The connection between the two can...Read more
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Anna Barriball
New Drawings 2 Feb - 14 Mar 2024 Golden SquareFrith Street Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new works by Anna Barriball. Light, memory and the history of photography are some of the abiding themes in this...Read more -
Gallery Summer Show
Portrait 7 Jul - 11 Aug 2023 Golden SquareFrith Street Gallery presents Portrait, an exhibition of works by gallery artists considering the contemporary portrait through a range of perspectives and mediums. From sensitive images of loved ones to...Read more -
Found Forms: A Summer Show 1 Jul - 13 Aug 2022 Golden Square
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Surface and Space: A Summer Show 9 Jul - 7 Aug 2021 Golden SquareThe photographs, works on paper and paintings in the exhibition often strike a balance between a legible image and an abstraction, conjuring a set of conversations between order and organic...Read more
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Summer Viewing
7 Jul - 7 Aug 2020 Golden SquareWe are delighted to announce that after a period of Covid-induced closure, the gallery reopens to the public on Tuesday 7 July. Visit us at Golden Square for a summer...Read more -
Anna Barriball
Fade 29 Mar - 15 May 2019 Golden SquareThe exhibition Fade shares its title with a three-channel video that is projected directly onto the gallery walls. The large-scale installation shows the landscape surrounding a wind turbine on the...Read more -
Summer Breeze: An Ensemble of Prints 29 Jun - 3 Aug 2018 Golden SquareSummer Breeze is a group exhibition that highlights the range and techniques of contemporary printmaking. Polly Apfelbaum adopted a systematic approach to create the series Hudson River Vallery Nirvana (2016)...Read more
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Summer Breeze 6 Jul - 11 Aug 2017 Soho Square, Golden SquareThe works at Golden Square reveal how the notion of body is imbued with multiple meanings, including recurring bodies of artwork, or bodies of human subjects themselves. An analyst, an...Read more
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Anna Barriball
New Works 18 Mar - 7 May 2016 Golden SquareBy meticulously tracing their surfaces with pencil or ink, she magnifies incidental details and textures created by everyday wear and tear, resulting in works on paper that have a sculptural...Read more -
Silver
17 Oct - 17 Dec 2014 Soho SquareSince opening, Frith Street Gallery has emerged as one of the art world’s most interesting forces, instrumental in developing the careers of internationally renowned figures as well as supporting those...Read more -
Anna Barriball
8 Nov - 21 Dec 2013 Golden SquareThis exhibition presents works on paper alongside a series of new videos inspired by the colouring techniques used in early cinema. The seven videos are shown on floor-based monitors and...Read more -
After the Volcano: A Summer Show of Gallery Artists 3 Jul - 14 Aug 2010 Golden SquareAfter the Volcano: a summer show of gallery artists features work by 14 gallery artists: Massimo Bartolini, John Riddy, Anna Barriball, Dayanita Singh, Dorothy Cross, Bridget Smith, Tacita Dean, Juan...Read more
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Anna Barriball
16 Jan - 6 Mar 2009 Golden SquareThe central piece in this exhibition is made from second hand curtains – chintzes and repeat patterns which feature images of flowers and other types of vegetation. Barriball has cut...Read more -
Resonance
The Final Exhibition at 59–60 Frith Street 3 Nov - 21 Dec 2006 Soho SquareFrith Street Gallery was established in 1989 with the intention of exhibiting drawings and works on paper. This exhibition recalls the gallery’s origins, bringing together works by gallery artists and...Read more -
Anna Barriball
24 Mar - 7 May 2004 Soho SquareMany of the pieces in this exhibition take the form of found objects, which the artist has subjected to sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so-subtle transformations. Much of Barriball’s practice explores and...Read more -
Frequencies
22 May - 4 Jul 2003 Soho SquareChantal Akerman’s Avec Sonia Wieder-Atherton is a portrait of the cellist and composer, Sonia Wieder-Atherton. In the film Akerman portrays the musician as an actor engaged in dialogue with her...Read more -
Drawings
5 Apr - 17 May 2001 Soho SquareWall-, floor-, light-based and free-hanging, the drawings in this show defy the status of the drawing as solely a preliminary study and revel in the use of colour – with...Read more
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Anna Barriball
Kunsthaus Pasquart Biel 2018Hardcover, 154 pagesRead more
Publisher: Verlag für moderne Kunst
Dimensions: 30 x 25.8 cm -
Anna Barriball
The Fruitmarket Gallery and MK Gallery 2011Hardback, 112 pagesRead more
Publisher: Co-published by MK Gallery, Milton Keynes and Fruitmarket, Edinburgh 2011
ISBN: 9781908612014
Dimensions: 27 x 22 cm