Paper boats

Location

Country: Thailand
City: Bangkok
Place: British Embassy

Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s poem, Paper Boats, this work by Glasgow-based artist, Sara Barker is a commission for the official British Residence in Bangkok. Literature is a strong influence in Barker’s art making, with its structural guide of margins and titling alongside abstraction reflected in her approach to her own work. Barker works between painting, sculpture and drawing, the latter two often articulated as three-dimensional drawings such as the metalwork we see in Paper Boats. In the eponymous poem a young boy folds up paper into boats, fills them with flowers and sets them to sail on a river, wondering who might find them as he seeks to connect with others who share the same river. In Barker’s work, folds and ideas of origami resonate in the bends of the aluminium trays that make up the surface that she paints on. The configuration of these trays, the forms, colours and shapes on her painted surface, are echoed by those made by the brass and steel metalwork. Together these elements of her work speak not only to the architecture of the space that they sit in at the British Residence but are also in conversation with the view of the city outside. Barker was unable to visit Bangkok when she made the work for the Residence, and worked from photographs and plans of the space. Her Paper Boats with its collage of materials and space, conjures a place of connection in our imaginations – a journey across an imaginary river bridging materials, spaces and place.

Sara Barker was born in Manchester, she completed a History of Art degree at the University of Glasgow (1999), going on to receive a BFA (Hons.) in Painting at the Glasgow School of Art (2003). Her work has been shown in numerous institutional solo exhibitions, most recently at Cample Line, Thornhill, UK; Leeds Art Gallery; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Arizona (all 2020); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (all 2016). She has made a number of sculptural commissions including for the Contemporary Art Society for Angel Court, London (2017) and for Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh. Group exhibitions including her work have been held most recently at Holburne Museum, Bath; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Contemporary Art Society, London (all 2022); Mostyn Llandudno, Wales; Tate St Ives; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (all 2018).

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

oil paint, sculpture (as object name), aluminium sculpture

Artist

Sara Barker (1980 - )

Title

Paper boats

Date

2020

Medium

oil paint and oil crayon, aluminium

Dimensions

height: 326.0 cm; width: 142.0 cm; depth: 25.0 cm

Acquisition

Commissioned for the Ambassador's Residence in Bangkok, Thailand

Provenance

Commissioned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in consultation with the Government Art Collection for the Ambassador's Residence in Bangkok, Thailand, 29 March 2022

GAC number

19045