For this issue we asked what does a barrier mean to you? Is it a physical enclosure that keeps the bad, or you inside or divides you from another? Is it fear of the unknown, or just fear of letting go? Is it a notional space that stops you from moving forward, a glass ceiling, a social tradition, or a line that challenges your progress? And what of the liminal space where you move from one place to another as you overcome the barrier? Are the barriers you face or have to navigate not your own but belong to someone or somewhere else? How have you navigated barriers in your life? Or have you had to use barriers to protect yourself and set clear boundaries?
So much to unpick and we are very excited to see how you tackled the topic.
Artist: Summer Dawes
Instagram: @sketchesbysummergb
Website: https://linktr.ee/SketchesBySummerGB
Description: I created this piece as a symbolism that despite a person being given a diagnosis, it does not define them. I feel that once someone is known to have a disability it is all they are seen as to those around them. I have personally seen this due to having two younger disabled brothers and it angers me that this is what society has come to. Disabled rights are human rights!
Artist: Amy Bucki
Instagram: @bucki_photography
Description: The image is a close-up photograph of the fractured remains of a genuine piece of the Berlin Wall, collected whilst on a Scout camp to Germany in the summer of 1990, when I was the young child of two Scout Leaders. In hindsight it seems poignant that during a trip run to encourage international co-operation and friendship between young people across Europe, that I should have been able to gather up pieces of a demolished symbol of division which had defined the continent from before I was born, but the demolition of which would equally define the world I would grow up in, and mark the end of an era for Europe.
Artist: Alexandra Buxbaum
Instagram: @buxbaumphoto
Description: The Wall in the West Bank is a deliberate barrier and has become a seemingly permanent fixture of the landscape. It has been a very contentious element of an ongoing conflict where one side sees it as a necessary barrier against political violence, and the other side sees it as an element of racial segregation and oppression that imposes severe restrictions on movement.
Artist: Zara Kand
Instagram: @zarakandart
Website: http://zarakand.com
Description: This piece symbolizes mental barriers, how confining those can be and how they may prevent us from noticing the light that is available just on the other side of the door. Specifically, this piece addresses the fog that is created through too much time looking at screens, rather than immersing oneself enough in the physical realm. The idea came to me on a day in which I felt particularly bombarded and frustrated by phones , screens, etc. and was suddenly struck by the beauty just outside my window- how an idyllic Spring afternoon had already slipped away without my even noticing.
Artist: Clare Gregory
Instagram: @_.clareellen
Description: My art practice focuses on the physical, mental, and emotional experiences with being chronically ill in the hopes of raising awareness. As a sufferer of Endometriosis and Fibromyalgia, overcoming barriers is something I and other sufferers have to experience regularly starting with diagnosis, continuing through our treatment and in our day to day.
Artist: Johannnes Christopher Gerard
Instagram: @chrisger9
Website: https://johannesgerard.com
Description: The barrier of inability to see. To realized and see your environment around. However, this situation can be implemented and levelled on you by others. But on the other hand it can be you very own choice for not to see . The image belongs to the Portfolio "I cannot see".
Artist: Martha Amorocho
Instagram: @martha_amorocho_artista
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/martha-amorocho
Description: The barriers are border areas, they are imaginary lines that arise and are fixed through implicit processes in power relations. With this work I am particularly interested in the symbolic barriers that circumscribe our bodies, emphasizing the inside/outside dichotomies. I take as a starting point what works as a limit such as the house or the skin, as a barrier that encloses but that is at the same time permeable to exchanges. Here the body is presented as a metaphor for territory, which appears marked and delimited by the barbed wire embedded in the skin.
Artist: Ela Bochenek
Instagram: @ela__bochenek
Website: www.elabochenek.com
Description: The main barriers that inspired this painting, or rather overcoming them, are celebrating imperfections and staying present in the moment by not judging what is, but simply letting all be. Our mind can be our closest friend or our worse enemy; those barriers that we create ourselves are the ones that fascinates me the most. Because, as we can read in the book ‘Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice” (Shunryu Suzuki): “You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm.”
Artist: Julian Claxton
Instagram : @electricbananaland
Website: https://www.axisweb.org/p/julianclaxton
Description: An exploration of the extreme boundaries of the Covid Tier 3 zone around Bristol. At this point in time (while Boris Johnson partied in London) Bristol citizens were not allowed to leave the BS postcode. Photographs at each of the further most compass points taken during Lockdown in December 2020. (All photos taken by J Watkins).
Artist: Tomas Lagunavicius
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008179871430
Description: Our bodies create real barriers to realizing our dreams. We use a variety of technological tools to expand our possibilities. For example, if we want to fly, we get on a plane and fly. But do our thoughts need it. Our thoughts can make us fly ourselves. And if we can imagine it, we can turn it into a visual language. We can try to imagine the ways in which we can fly. Maybe it would be what is depicted in this picture, or maybe something else. But maybe it is also this, because our thoughts have no limits.
Artist: TASALLA TABASOM
Instagram : @tasalla.tabasom
https://www.tasallatabasom.com/project-page-7
Description: Otāgh is a sculpture installation and performance project exploring the space encapsulated within the Hijab and the expanse it engenders around it. It examines the nuanced threshold between refuge and captivity, weaving the ornamental textile of the Paisley pattern, Evoking the spirit of Persian culture and resonating with the symbolic historical legacy and cultural heritage. Within the confines of the Hijab, self-expression intertwines with religious observance. I made this work to confront the discourse around hijab. this work is considered extremely Taboo in Iran, making this work I had to risk ever going back to my home country.
Artist: Caroline Bugby
Instagram: @carolinebugby
Website: www.carolinebugby.co.uk
Description: ‘Orange Limen’ is a sculpture that subverts the familiar form of a crowd control barrier - an object that appears as both authoritarian and absurd, the gaudy orange colour simultaneously suggesting danger and playgrounds. An ominous presence when grouped in packs on the street, they are at their most abject when discovered toppled and abandoned.
In this sculpture, the barrier appears to stretch and inflate, its lumpen form transforming into a portal – an invitation to imaginatively traverse this bizarre threshold, and an idea that our most officious objects might harbour a certain duality.
Artist: Sana Iqbal
Instagram: @sanaiqbalqutb
Website: www.sanaiqbalqutb.com
Description: In South Asia, Kanaat's (tents) are commonly utilized to establish a boundary when and where needed. These often-colorful tents can redirect individuals or block entry to a specific location. Raj neglected the excellence of Indian art and architecture and instead emphasized applied arts that did not require much intellectual or emotional effort. By creating a boundary out of embroidered pieces made by girls in Pakistan; girls who had to rely on a skill to survive and thrive, and by displaying this boundary at an art institute in the UK, I'm making their very well-deserved presence known.
Artist: Katie Surridge
Instagram: @katiesurridgeart
Website: www.katiesurridge.com
Description: The piece is an investigation in to online dating and takes the form of a kissing gate which the viewer can pass through. The text that adorns its surface are inspired by conversations the artist had on the online dating platform Hinge. The work challenged my metal working skills to the max as it is the largest work I have made to date and had absolutely no help with in the workshop - and if you know metal fabrication this often involves pulling or forcing things in to place which is especially hard when you are trying to do that and weld at the same time!
Artist: GooseWasArt
Instagram: @goosewasart
Website: https://goosewasart.com/
Description: "Nosebleed" portrays a psychological state of suffering, while surrounded by an emptiness that itself becomes a barrier stopping you from any progress backwards or forward. I created the piece to remind myself (and hopefully others) that the harder the life - the stronger you become - and that's the unforgiving beauty of life.
Artist: Day Bowman
Instagram: @dayjbowman
Website: https://www.daybowman.com
Description: The series ‘Marking Out the Boundaries’ addresses the rural landscape of Britain today and questions why the land has been parcelled up in the way it is. Thanks to countless television programmes, holiday tour companies and painters down the ages waxing lyrical we have come to accept this bucolic landscape of patchwork quilt of shape and colour.
History tells another story: when, less than two hundred years ago, the Enclosure Acts enabled the wealthy landowners and farmers to benefit and the peasant population was driven off the land and into the towns and cities to seek a livelihood.
Artist: Susan Plover
Website: www.susanplover.co.uk
Description: I have encountered and navigated the Glass Ceiling both as as a woman and a mother returning to the workplace. On both counts the main tensions were not all directed from my male co-workers !
Artist: Marta Byrdziak
Instagram: @byrdziak_marta_mb
Description: Holey Virgin - religion is for many people some form of catharsis, It is big part of life for most of us. When we are kids it is really easy to believe (as kids believe everything their parents will say). While growing up we are forming our own ideas and believes. Then religion can be seen as barrier between people, which can easily divide us then unite.
Artist: Innokenty Sharkov
Instagram: @innsharkov
Website: http://www.isharkov.com
Description: As long as I remember myself, I have searched for barriers, and overcome them. They are inside. You imagine a work of art as a perfect Platonic idea. But in the process of creation all the shortcomings of the material world are revealed. Moreover, words and thought-forms can't be transformed into material. Yet another barrier is the knowledge of how art should look. One can call it "school". And so, all these years, I have to struggle with this knowledge.
"The Theory of Defence" is about fears and hangups. The world beyond the walls appears to be hostile and unpredictable. But we raise barriers ourselves and project our own fears.
Artist: Barbara Hulme
Instagram: @barbara.hulme
Website: https://barbarahulmefineartist.com/
Description: Agoraphobia, the barrier of the front door to keep the rest of the world and its horrors out, yet also desperate to take part and aware you are missing out. I made the piece as I have agoraphobia so the piece is very personal too me. I had to go out to a local shop to buy the newspapers for the collage, which was a massive step for me. And also find a piece of glass heavy enough to give the impression of me being pressed up against it and get that effect. The door is both a barrier to keep out the world for safety and also a prison that keeps you locked in.
Artist: Keron Beattie
Instagram: @keron_beattie
Website: www.keronbeattie.com
Description: Thinking about the idea of barriers I became intrigued by the idea of barriers we erect ourselves. Some are internally driven but others are societal and hence harder to perhap see and challenge, if appropriate. An image of sheep came to mind and a process exploration lead to this way of visually representing the notion of self imposed barriers.
Artist: Michelle Baharier
Instagram : @bahariermichelle
michellebaharier.co.uk https://michellebaharier.co.uk
I am a female , working class, disabled artist and everything I do is a barrier, I have dyslexia and no speech-to-text does not work video does not work my diagnosis of dyslexia was well before dyslexia was even a disability. When I first left College there were no computers just typewriters, not even electric ones manuals. But still, I've had to cope and find strategies in which to live in this world at which every door that opens also closes because as a disabled person, you become totally disenfranchised. Such as this website which is supposed to be for artists to apply for artist proposals however for every single one I have to write. Due to dyslexia I have a limited vocabulary. What I have written here is being written on a speech to text program I will not know if any of it is wrong but I will be judged by it nonetheless. Barriers can be invisible especially when you have to be disabled like myself, dyslexia affects how you hear sound it affects the vocabulary that you learn it affects how you speak, it's also affects your confidence your self-esteem mental health. Of course the visual barriers are always walls, I wrote my thesis on walls concrete and spiritual. The painting I have here for you to show there's an image of my friend Sue Elsegood, because she breaks down barriers she changed herself to root master bosses in the 80s and 90s which made the change and made buses accessible so that's why I've included her here as understanding the type of barriers that we disabled people face, is so often dismissed by ableism, that can't look in the mirror and actually see its Prejudice. I have also painted and filmed Sue, who was instrumental in creating change for disabled people by chaining herself to buses as part of disability Action network, a group of disabled activists who have gone on to champion accessible transport for all.
I making disabled people's history, my portrait of Sue, who is sitting in her home surrounded by her cats and astronauts, as she famously said 'we can put an astronaut on the moon, but we cannot put a wheelchair user on a bus.' I believe this fulfills the brief.
Artist: Lauren Towner
Instagram: @Ltownerillustrates
Website: www.laurentowner.co.uk
Description: In Mexico, rape gangs hang the panties of their victims on the border wire as a warning to others. In some parts of Africa, underwear is a sign of wealth, and acts as a rape deterrent. Chastity belts, the cotton ceiling, bra burning; women's underwear has been used as / or been seen as a barrier for generations. Small pieces of cloth that wield enormous power.
Artist: B.A Adeyemo
Instagram: @ba_adeyemo
Description: My barrier is me, my mind and I. Physically, I have the tools that I need to move from one space to another, but I find myself stuck yet longing to get to a place other than where I am now....
Artist: Ally Zlatar
Instagram: @allyzlatar
Website: https://allyz.cargo.site/
Description: This work 'Border Crossing' explores barriers through the contrasting experiences between rural and urban individuals, with a particular focus on the essential roles of building, craftsmanship, and labor in rural communities. By shining a light on these aspects of rural life, the artwork brings attention to the often overlooked infrastructure that sustains urban living. The "divergent experiences" imply that there are significant differences between the lives of rural and urban individuals. These differences might be related to their lifestyles, economic opportunities, social connections, and access to resources. By emphasizing the "cyclic" nature of the infrastructure, the artwork could be suggesting that these fundamental aspects of rural life are interconnected and constantly evolving to support and sustain the community.
