Brian Barker

Brian Barker
Denver, Colorado, USA

STATEMENT

I love old paper freckled yellow and toned by time. When sourcing materials for my collages, I search for the depth, richness, and texture of such patina, drawing almost exclusively from discarded 19th century books and magazines of natural history, science, medicine, religion, and children’s literature. I also incorporate other types of paper ephemera, such as old ledgers, almanacs, letters and antique invoices.

My influences range from tarot cards and Hieronymus Bosch; to fraternal organization iconography (the Odd Fellows and the Freemasons especially) and Renaissance portraiture; to the Mughal paintings of the 16th-18th centuries and the monsters of Medieval marginalia. My collages are often populated by chimera, misfit saints, wayward travelers, and other apocryphal figures. These darkly whimsical beings wander in from the worlds of myths and fables, dreams and nightmares, and the before and after life. I hope my collages spark for the viewer a sense of wonder and reverie, creating a space to consider such underlying concerns as death, power, time, silence, uncertainty, fear and anxiety, and the relationship between the human and animal worlds.

BIO

Brian Barker is a poet and collage artist from Denver, Colorado.

Brian Barker’s collage Reap & Sow appeared on the cover of Kolaj 30.

ARTIST CONTACT

[click to email]
www.imaginarymaladies.com

IMAGES