Barbara Harrison

Barbara Harrison

I am a visual artist. My digital practice is strongly underpinned by the aesthetics of painting, and is informed by art history, cultural studies and sociology.

Title: Apocalypse Teatime

This no-budget, lo-fi, Pop Art style digital collage is made from low-res stock photos found on the internet. All the images are manipulated using second-hand Photoshop Elements 7.

Theme: the vintage mirror remembers the domestic dysfunction and thwarted aspirations it has witnessed throughout its rural and suburban lifetime from pre-1940s to the present day. The mirror first belonged to my father's mother and came to the Wirral when the family moved here in the fifties. The mirror has experienced at least 4 addresses and must be over 80 years old.

Rubbish exhibition in the park

Helen Smith's workshop with plastic bag flowers

 

A “rubbish” show in Birkenhead Park Visitors Centre doesn’t sound very appealing but with over 30 Merseyside based artists and craftspeople using junk it is definitely an exhibition worth viewing. The exhibitors have taken rubbish, litter and un-used items to recreate into artwork and craftwork showing how with a bit of creativity and skill - things that would inevitably end up in landfill can be transformed and be saved. The exhibition “de-junk, re-junk!” will be open daily from 9 til 4.30pm daily.

Following her involvement with the organisation of recycling art shows in 2010 and 2011, curator Alison Bailey Smith has had support from Wirral Council again in mounting the exhibition, she said of the forthcoming exhibition:

  "Last year, the exhibition took a different approach to the previous community show in 2010 with professional artists and craftspeople re-using my old kitchen and producing paintings, mosaics and sculptures. This year, we have used social media to ask for items such as milk bottles and plastic to transform as well as exchanging our own unwanted hoarded, redundant “gems”. We visited Bidston recycling plant to see the recycling process first hand. After which many of the artists reconsidered the items they were using to shift to items not currently being recycled through local recycling facilities.  One of the pieces to be featured in the exhibition will be our new sign made of scrabble parts and broken plates produced at a mosaic workshop during our de-junk, re-junk workshops funded by MRWA earlier this year and a piece of furniture made using reclaimed wooden floorboards by mastercraftsman, Damon Revans-Turner. Next year, in 2013 we will be looking for sponsors to be able to run the exhibition”

There will be "junk" available for people to take away and create their own de-junk, re-junk creation, photos can be emailed to Alison Bailey Smith info@abscraft.com and their recreations will be posted on the blog during the show http://de-junkre-junk.blogspot.co.uk/

Birkenhead Park Visitors Centre, Birkenhead Park, Park Drive, Birkenhead, Merseyside CH41 4HY