Art Space - Sponsored Studio Award 2011

ALANNAH BARKER

Using street photography as an initial starting point for drawings Alannah removes the background to create new narratives, figures become suspended within the space of the paper, free to wonder in their own world. Through studying and photographing people in everyday scenarios she captures spontaneous moments that normally go unnoticed. Within the drawings the focus is solely on the individual, the viewer is able to make a normal judgement of the person portrayed without the threat of having the gaze returned. The viewer is also able to project their own experience or feelings upon the image. So each piece of work is individual to the person viewing it.

Alannah believes drawing is one of the most important tools, being one of the first means of communication, most things start with a draughtsman, be it architecture, mathematics, cartographers or planners, although in the art world it has maintained a relation with the provisional and unfinished, this has begun to change. She has utilized the innocence of drawing as a means to produce her work because of the qualities graphite are so different to those that paint can achieve. The act of drawing intense pictures laboriously when a photograph can record them effortlessly allows an intense clarified view of the split second of life. That second then becomes a series of moments created by the artist and emphasized through the act of drawing.

Alannah has been a member of Art Space Portsmouth since her residency. You can see her artist's page here.

Alannah's further weblinks:

www.alannahbarker.com
www.alannahbarker.blogspot.com
www.axisweb.org/artist/alannahbarker