Barbara Walker

Barbara Walker MBE, RA, is a British artist based in Birmingham, UK. Current and forthcoming institutional exhibitions include Being Here, the first major survey of the artist’s work, organised by The Whitworth, Manchester, UK, where it was on view 4 October 2024–26 January 2025, and Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, where it is on view 8 March–25 May 2025, and the group exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, a Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition on view at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), UK, 19 April–13 July 2025.

Previous solo institutional exhibitions include Place, Space and Who, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2019); Vanishing Point, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, UK (2018); Shock and Awe, Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, UK (2016); Sub Urban, the James Hockey Gallery, part of the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, UK (2015).

Her works have been included in significant group exhibitions in the UK and internationally including: The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, which was first on view at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK, in 2024 and recently at Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA (2024–2025); Untold Lives, Kensington Palace, London, UK (2024); Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2023); Life Between Islands, Caribbean-British Art 1950s–Now, Tate Britain, London, UK (2021–2022), Lahore Biennale, Pakistan (2020); Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK (2019); Zeichen, MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen, Germany (2018); Diaspora Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennale, Italy (2017); A Slice Through the World: Contemporary Artists’ Drawings, Modern Art Oxford, UK (2018); The Gallery of Small Things, Dakar Biennale, Senegal (2018).

Her work is held in private and public collections internationally, including the British Museum, London, UK; Government Art Collection, London, UK; Arts Council England, London, UK; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, UK; Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, USA; Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA.

Walker was awarded the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist Bursary Award 2020 and Bridget Riley Fellowship 2020 at The British School at Rome, and received the inaugural Evelyn Williams Drawing Award in 2017 in association with the Jerwood Charitable Foundation. She was awarded an MBE in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to British Art. In 2023, she was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts and nominated for the Turner Prize.