Frances Barker's Projects

BFA Student

Major: Painting

Graduation Year: 2018

Artist Statement:

Painting is a vessel through which I can ask the following questions: what does it mean to live a non-binary existence in denial of existing systems of oppression? How can I live as a post-y2k citizen in a world of increasing globalization and capitalist enterprises subsuming identity? How can I negotiate cultural signifiers of simulacrum, love, and play with the violence inherent in predetermined aesthetics and hierarchical power structures of affective labor and capital?

I feel I have to explore these questions through painting; it is my responsibility as an artist to negotiate privilege and oppressive behaviors in cultural artifacts and to critically examine that which I consume to be cognizant of the power structures of gender, race, ability, and other determining sociopolitical factors that define living under capitalism. If I want to exist outside of binary structures of power, I first have the responsibility to negotiate my place within them and be accountable for my interactions. Painting allows me to examine my relationship with capitalism and subvert my affective identity within these systems.

Biography:

I was born in June of 1996. My first video game was Pokemon Red on the Game Boy Color. The first operating system I remember using was my mother’s Macintosh OS 9. I used to play with Shockwave Flash games and ‘draw’ in her Adobe Illustrator program when she wasn’t working. I became an artist because there was never anything else to be.