A Haunting in Venice

Barbara Walker has been in residency in Venice for two months. During this time she has produced six new 'blue print' works currently on display at Victoria Miro gallery in Any Time, Any Place, Any Where, the gallery also hosting her for the residency.

This is a project of firsts. The first time Victoria Miro has had an artist in residence with an immediate exhibition after the fact (something Victoria herself said was very bold and takes a special artist to do well.) It is the first time they have hosted a show of drawings by an artist that they do not represent. It's Barbara's first international solo show. And it is the first time she has ever worked in this way, with this extremely tight deadline and making new work, focusing on new themes for a brand new show.

This in part why Barbara describes this new series of self portraits as 'blue prints' as they are more developed than sketches but not quite the finished product either. They are, for another first, the first time Barbara has shown her work in development, showing a thought process not fully yet formed. This in-between moment of the work mirrors the artists in-between moment of her studio practice.

Last year Barbara opened her first ever survey exhibition at the Whitworth in Manchester. This exhibition showcased work from her 35 year career and included her early paintings, Private Face, through to her recent Turner Prize nominated series, Burden of Proof. This survey show, Being Here, has asked Barbara to reflect on her work to date and think about where she wants to take it next. So this residency makes so much sense for her right now.

But after realising this mammoth exhibition the studio can be a daunting place and the idea of an exhibition in two months a daunting task. Being away from home, navigating a new city, new studio, new friends, how can you make work in this environment? The answer, for Barbara, was to look inward, to look at herself.

Barbara wanted to represent this new emotional space she was within by creating a series of self portraits. Each portrait examining her features from a different angle, each self portrait being fuelled by the energy and emotion of the day, each self portrait being successful for their flaws, honesty, rawness and fragility.

The portraits are a mirror of the artist but also the city she is within. Venice is haunting, busy, transient, beautiful, full of light. It moved, physically, the motion of the water lifting and dipping, and also, while she was there, it changed from winter to spring, and with the seasonal change she too changed. The work was not immediate, it took time to click. She has exposed herself through photographs taken from angles not 'normal' to capturing a face for portraiture. These angles and viewpoints inspired by Italian Renaissance artist, Tintoretto, and Italian Rococo painter Rosalba Carriera who she had encountered while visiting museums in Venice in her first weeks in the city. This is unusual and unnerving, and Barbara felt vulnerable and exposed in front of the camera, feelings that only heightened when it came to drawing the images, of examining every pore, flaw, mark and memory we hold on our faces.

On top of which she was having to make, at pace, the work. There wasn't time for refinement, for taking a day off if she was feeling fatigued. She had to push on, and you can see the energy dip and rage in the different works. Some of the works leaving large blank spaces on the paper, and parts unfinished, as she too, is a woman still developing, still filling in all the parts of herself. She is at this moment only a part of herself, and this is what she reveals through these tender, vulnerable and transient works.

Any Time, Any Place, Any Where reveals the curiosity Barbara felt in Venice, of this new experience that demanded she stay curious, reactive and playful. It continued the importance of storytelling in her work, with these pieces intentionally telling a bigger story of self portraiture, of her personal experience here in Venice and of the artist's intention. The Self-Portrait series are a threshold, a foundation, a jumping off point, for a new series of work. They are the development and exploration for something new. Barbara is stepping across a threshold into new creative intentions and self awareness.