Phyllida Barlow

Using every day and low-cost materials such as cardboard, plywood, polystyrene, cement and fabric, Phyllida Barlow creates sculptural installations that reinvent one’s relationship with sculpture and the space they occupy. Her usually large yet anti-monumental sculptures, painted in bright and industrial colours, reveal their structural foundations, balancing and stabilising at the same time. For Barlow, the sculpture acts as a landscape through which the viewer walks through, experiencing the play of volume, mass and perspective. In 2017, the artist represented the UK at the Venice Biennale with her installation titled folly, where sculptures occupied the space from floor to ceiling to the outside of the building. By imposing scale over the fragility of balance and precariousness of her choice of materials, Barlow creates works that are powerful and grounding in their playfulness.