Barker’s work, influenced by literature, poetry and language reimagines landscape painting as sculpture. Her work explores the territory between, including  the methods and materials associated with both mediums. Working with a combination of steel, aluminium, brass, glass and automotive paint to create both wall and floor-based artworks, the structural nature of her sculpture is combined and contrasted with the painted image and the freedom of gesture and mark-making. The notion of threshold long present in Barker’s work places the viewer between interior and exterior, between experience and memory, between what we see, or have seen, and what we feel.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2021 [hems], The Annexe, London, UK

2021 Permanent outdoor commission, Barclays Clyde Place, Glasgow, commissioned by Patricia Fleming

2020 undo the knot, Cample Line, Scotland, UK

2020 Sara Barker: All Clouds Are Clocks, All Clocks Are Clouds, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds

2020 SMoCA LAB: Sara Barker, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

2017 The faces of older images, Mary Mary, Glasgow, UK

2017 A weak spot in the earth, The Approach, London, UK

2016 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK

2016 CHANGE-THE-SETTING, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

2015 Outdoor work commission, CASS Sculpture Foundation, West Sussex, UK

2015 Permanent sculptural commission, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, UK

2014 for myself & strangers, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, UK

2014 I become almost a shadow, carlier gebauer, Berlin, Germany

2013 The subtle knife with Ryder Architecture, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK

2013 THE THINGS THAT ARE SOLID, ABSORBED AND STILL, Mary Mary, Glasgow, UK

2013 Patterns, outdoor work commission, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh, UK

2012 Mary Mary at 45 Alexandra Park Street, Glasgow, UK

2012 Woman at a window, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London, UK

2010 Images, Mary Mary, Glasgow, UK

2009 FOUR, Dublin, Ireland

2008 Present Future, Artissima Art Fair, Turin, Italy

2008 hanging a way of dressing, Glasgow Project Rooms, Glasgow, UK

2007 Mary Mary, Glasgow, UK

2006 New Work Scotland, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2021 My Kid Could’ve Done That, Holbourne Museum, Bath, UK

2021 Drink in the Beauty, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, UK

2021 Contemporary Art Society, Mayfair, London, UK

2018 DRAF x MOSTYN: She sees the shadows, Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales

2018 Surface Work, Victoria Miro, London, UK

2018 NOW, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

2018 Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired by her writing, Tate St. Ives, St. Ives, UK; Pallant House, 2018 Chichester; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

2018 Condo New York, Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York

2018 L’immagine e il suo doppio, Eduardo Secci Contemporary, Firenze

2018 Known Unknowns, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

2017-18 Women to Watch, Phillips, London; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington

2017-18 Moments of Being: an exhibition based on the writings of Virginia Woolf, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall; Pallant House, Chichester; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

2017 20 Years Show, The Approach, London, UK

2017 Drawing Biennale, Drawing Room, London, UK

2016 Geographies of Dust and Air, Mary Mary Glasgow, UK

2015 Signal Failure, Pace, London, UK

2013 The End of the 20th Century: The Best Is Yet to Come, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum fur Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany

2013 Sara Barker / Barbara Kasten, Mary Mary at 10 Northington Street, London, UK

2013 The Gravity of Things, Galeria Quadrado Azul, Lisbon, Portugal

2013 Laura Aldridge / Sara Barker / Sue Tompkins, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, USA

2013 New Order: British Art Today, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK

2013 Drawing : Sculpture, The Drawing Room, London, UK

2013 The Geometry of Things – Markus Amm / Sara Barker / Robin Watkins, GAK, Bremen, Germany

2013 Least common denominator, M1 Arthur Boskamp-Stiffung, Hohenlockstedt, Germany

2012 A House of Leaves. Second Movement, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK

2012 Tracing the Century: Drawing from Tate Collection, Tate Liverpool, UK

2012 Pink Caviar: Recent Acquisitions, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark

2012 Drawing : Sculpture, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK

2012 Studio 58: Women Artists in Glasgow Since WWII, Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow School of Art, UK

2011 Frauenzimmer – Sara Barker / Karla Black / Carol Bove / Thea Djordjadze / Isa Genzken / Kitty Kraus / Tatiana Trouvé, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany

2011 Look with all your eyes, look, Frith Street Gallery, London, UK

2011 Sara Barker / Lars Tygesen, Christian Anderson, Copenhagen, Denmark

2011 Somiglianze non sensibili, Galerie Opdahl, Berlin, Germany

2010 Maria Loboda / Chiara Camoni / Sara Barker / Marie Lund / Gyan Panchard, Galleri Opdahl, Norway

2010 Sara Barker / Jessica Rankin, Carlier Gebauer, Berlin, Germany

2009 The morning after the big fire  – Sara Barker / Michael Samuels, Ville du Parc Contemporary Art Center, Annemasse, France

2009 Taj Mahal Travellers, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, Sweden

2009 La Importancia del Pez Cebra, Pillar Parra & Romero, Madrid

2009 Zero Budget Biennial, Paris, France

2009 The Actuality of the Idea, Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London

2008 Base: Object, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, USA

2008 Open Eye Club, Tramway, Glasgow, UK

2008 Claire Barclay / Sara Barker / Neil Clements / Sally Osborn / Jonathan Owen / Albrecht Schafer, 

Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, UK

2007 SV07: Members’ Show, Studio Voltaire, London, UK

2006 Peaton House: Sara Barker, Aleana Egan, Tim Facey, Lotte Gertz, Joe Pipal, Cove Park, Argyll & Bute, UK

2006 Magazine 2006, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, UK

2006 Mantua Art Festival, Roscommon, Ireland

2006 Transmission Members Show, Glasgow, UK

2005 Re-Escape, Hamburg, Germany

2005 Untitled, Transmission, Glasgow, UK

2004 Best in Show, Members show, Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

2004 Shadow Lives, Emerged Gallery, Glasgow, UK

2004 Sara Barker / Lotte Gertz, Mary Mary Project Space, Glasgow, UK