Guest Post

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Barnaby Barford

Guest Posting 12 July – 16 July 2010

Barnaby Barford is an artist and filmmaker who works primarily with ceramics to create unique narrative pieces. He works with both mass-market and antique found porcelain figurines, reworking them to create sculptures which are often sinister and sardonic but invariably humorous. With irony, he draws a portrait of our contemporary lives. Through these unique works, Barford explores all aspects of our society, following in the tradition of Hogarth, Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare; with a dark sense of English humour and satire, Barford’s work explores and celebrates the human condition.

What have you got planned this week?

Enjoying the rest of the World Cup. Working on a proposal for a new film and installation and doing some new sculptures.

What do your parents think you do?

My Mum’s pretty knowledgeable about what I do actually, she’s always been really supportive.

Who do you look like?

My Dad, Grandad, Great Grandad etc etc.

What’s your favourite sense?

Sight for working life and also taste for pure enjoyment – can I have two?

Tell us something people don’t know about you…

I would have loved to have been a Rally Driver.

Did your education count?

Yes a tremendous amount.

What word can’t you spell?

I get a lot of dotted red lines under words when I type so a fair few actually!

Tell us a good fact

There are more languages spoken in London than in any other city in the world.

What’s Next?

Making some new sculptures, in clay this time, rather than using found objects and looking for funding for a new film. Finding a gallery to work with in New York and or L.A.

What’’s your ‘Plan B’?

Keep going until Plan A works.

Guest Posted Articles

  1. Richard Slee

    Guest posted by Barnaby Barford,

    I am a huge fan of Richard Slee’s work, he is one of Britain’s most important contemporary ceramic artists. His work attempts to challenge every conventional notion of that genre. He has a show at Hayles Gallery, London which finishes on the 17th July a must see!

  2. Jan Svankmajer

    Guest posted by Barnaby Barford,

    One of the great Czech filmmakers, Jan Svankmajer was born in 1934 in Prague where he still lives. Svankmajer made his first film in 1964 and for over thirty years has made some of the most memorable and unique animated films ever made, gaining a reputation as one of the world’s foremost animators, and influencing filmmakers from Tim Burton to The Brothers Quay. His brilliant use of claymation reached its apotheosis with the stunning 1982 film Dimensions of Diagloue. In 1987 Svankmajer completed his first feature film, Alice, a characteristically witty and subversive adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

  3. London Snorkeling Team

    Guest posted by Barnaby Barford,

    A fantastic show, quite indescribable, live music mixed with overhead projector animation. They describe themselves as Sci-Fi Cartoon Jazz Music. I saw them at the Barbican in May. Upcoming events are listed on their MySpace page and are playing at Latitude and Barbican during July.

  4. Elodie Pong

    Guest posted by Barnaby Barford,

    I have only recently discovered Elodie’s work. I saw a film she made entitled After the Empire at the Basel Art Fair. A well constructed, memorable piece that was highly amusing too. In this video, face-to-face conversations between late icons of popular culture and political and historical heroes – including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Batman & Robin, Karl Marx – are orchestrated. Surrounded by a post-apocalyptic set, the actors embody their character‘s individual and symbolic extremes, longings, and ideals in simultaneously humorous and elegiac ways.