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. In her series Windows 1–10 (2006), for instance, the artist placed small, found photographs of windows on a white background, creating disembodied portals into imaginary spaces.
Different processes of drawing are at the heart of her practice, a medium that she treats in a way that is uniquely tactile. Wall (2021), a drawing of a section of brick wall in the artist’s studio, was created by placing a large piece of paper onto a brick wall and carefully applying graphite on its textured surface. Layers of grey shimmer subtly, creating at once an illusion of a brick wall and an abstract, meditative object. Blinds (yellow and pink) (2020) is the result of the artist dusting powdered pastel onto the paper before dipping it into molten wax and folding the new surface horizontally to replicate the venetian blinds in her studio. The labour-intensive process transforms the drawing into the sculptural realm, giving the pigments a jewel-like quality.
Photography and video are also key mediums for the artist, including the colouring techniques of early cinema. Whether in still or time-based mediums, the artist has an ongoing interest in how temporality, memory and the mechanics of sight all interact.
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Anna Barriball: Artist Talk
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 -
Anna Barriball & Dayanita Singh: Group Exhibition
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 and Dirk Braeckman: Double Exhibition
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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Gallery Summer Show: Portrait 7 Jul - 12 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
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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