Forty years after emerging as a fashionable Pop Art sculptor on the 1960s London art scene, Clive Barker continues to surprise with works defined by youthful freshness, originality, immediacy, glamour and humour in which he has retained his commitment to the Pop movement.
Barker's key theme has always been the transformation of commonplace objects by casting them in metal in order to make a connection between art and the post-war world of consumerism. During the 1960s, with his casts of Coca Cola bottles, cakes and tarts, Barker succeeded to sell the public the image of their own tastes repackaged and sanctified by the aura of fine art. Today, with works such as Ham on the Bone, Barker continues to represent popular contemporary commodities available to all people. Museums holding Barker's work include: Tate, London; British Museum, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Staedtische Kunsthalle Mannheim; Museum fuer Modern Kunst, Frankfurt; National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Museu Coleção Berardo, Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, Lisbon; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.