Sea heaves in a glass (2015)

Sara Barker’s work not only considers the boundary between sculpture and painting, but exists as the boundary itself. True to this stylistic approach, Sea heaves in a glass (2015) is the first in a series of weaving metal drawings that wind around painted aluminium trays. The slivers of painted surface that made up earlier work by the artist now dominate the experience. The latest works resemble etching plates and combine the heavier materials of industry with the refined process of silversmithing. The addition of perspex screens creates an intentional barrier between painting and viewer, both concealing and creating new dimensions of space and making it more difficult to view the work from a frontal position. Instead we are forced to return to the work as a sculpture and consider both interior and exterior space, getting our best views of the painted surfaces from the side. The work is influenced by a poem by Mark Strand, Reading in Place (1990): ‘how the stars in the sky’s black glass / sink down and the sea heaves them ashore like foam’. Barker’s choice of colour and its application creates a sense of both reality and liminality; the fluidity of the blue is a reflection of the sea and the sky. The work seems to form a border to a subterranean imagination – a window to another place.

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