Private Face

Private Face is Barbara Walker’s first major body of work. The series of paintings depict family and friends, and everyday scenes from the Afro-Caribbean communities in Birmingham.

“Walker’s paintings represent a living, breathing historical document of the modern-day Black Birmingham resident; relatives in Jamaica, roots in Africa, home in Balsall Heath, or Edgbaston or Handsworth. Residents whose accents are local, yet at the same time resonate with a range of diasporic twangs.” Eddie Chambers, 2002

Responding to the negative stereotyping of Black communities in the media, Walker set out to redefine perceptions of Black life. Inspired by Birmingham’s rich history of social documentary photography, Walker used a camera to initially capture her sitters. The photographs she then translated onto canvas through oil paint. Private Face captures people on their own terms in closely observed, quiet moments in scenes from a Pentecostal church, barbershops and markets. As Walker says, in spaces “where the rituals and ceremonies of everyday Black life occur”.