The ceilings hold the sculptures, laid on the ground, sprawl over the marble floor, with which she permanently disrupts the natural flow of visitors through the space.
Barlow is a talented artist who has caught the attention of most exhibitions. Barlow was born in 1944 in Newcastle, England, though she spent most of tender age in London. In London, she went to Chelsea Collage of Art and later became a Professor Emerita at the Slade School of Fine Art. Barlow had a great influence on Young British Artists (YBAs). She mentored many internationally famous students, namely, Martin Creed, Angela de la Cruz, and Douglas Gordon to the Turner Prize winner Rachel Whiteread. Barlow came into the international limelight because of her shows at the Migros Museum and Vienna’s BAWAG Foundation from 2010. The commission of Dock, 2014for Duveen Galleries is a significant establishment in Barlow’s career as a sculpture artist. As for a sculptor, it is one of the most visible platforms in the country essentially a long and cavernous hall with vaulted ceilings from which various galleries radiate.
Dock, 2014 is reportedly inspired by the view of a shipping container on the River Thames located nearly Tate Britain. Gothic, slapstick, over-reaching, trammeling, dock presents the world as a theatre set, a gigantic childs play of sculptural ambition, an anti-monumental act of deconstruction, and a huge bricolage. The seven sculptures collectively collapse, jostle and stretch out over the 100-yard in length, 16-yard tall in Duveen Court. The first most eye-catching object is the intricate Dock: 5hungblocks, 2013. The five chunky rectangular forms almost look like trapped in the disorderly arranged wooden fence, suspended by red straps intruded by several tubes. The weightless sense of suspending an object with the illusion of water flowing in the air intrigues Barlow.