Chris Barr: This Place Must Be Earth

About

This new body of work by Chris Barr, comprised of painting, sculpture and installation, invokes a disquieting effect that undermines our confidence in the solid ground that we take for granted to be the stable locus of our self- conception. The statement of the work forces us to question our surroundings in a new light that conjures up the de-familiar aura of science fiction. The objects and images invite us to re-negotiate the status and validity of familiar origins. Too, Barr's work seems to imply that the knowledge that we have invented our world does not necessarily erase the possibilty that we might believe in it. Questions of commodity value, irrationality and collective memory arise. The domestic setting of some of the works serves to tease out and lay bare the emotional content of quotidian objects by placing them within the wider cosmological context. We are presented with the notion that, just like the abstract fictions of the artist, there are an infinite number of possible earths. Chris Barr has an ongoing interest in cosmology.
Chris Barr is a recent graduate of the MA Painting programme at the Royal College of Art, London.
Image: Christopher Barr. Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth , Digital Print, iridescent film. Framed work, 2011.