Barnaby Barford

Barnaby Barford is an artist who works primarily with ceramics to create unique narrative pieces. He works with both mass-market and antique found porcelain figurines, cutting up and exchanging elements or adding to them and repainting them, to create sculptures which are often sinister and sardonic but invariably humorous. With irony, he draws a portrait of our contemporary lives.

In Barford’s world a kitsch figure of a 19th century peasant boy becomes a 20th century teenage thug in a hoodie; rustic maidens dancing on a bed of roses brandish guns; a charming scene of a Victorian family sharing a meal is undermined by the copious buckets of KFC fried chicken which they’re laying into. Through his unique works, Barford explores all aspects of our society. Following in the tradition of Hogarth, Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare; with a dark sense of humour and satire, Barford’s work explores and celebrates the human condition. This exhibition comes direct to Dovecot from MOCA The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.

Barnaby Barford (b. 1977) graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2002. He has been the subject of several solo exhibitions in the UK, and has shown in exhibitions internationally. His work is part of both public and private collections.

Watch interview with Summerhall TV here.

Listen to interview with The Culture Studio BBC Radio Scotland at 40:35 here.