Mandy Barker – Anthropocene

Mandy Barker displays plastic objects that she’s found on beaches on a large black velvet background with a soft, natural light. The photographs are often a collaboration of multiple photographers works put together for the sole purpose of Barker’s piece, varying from specific categories of objects such as footballs, containers and fixtures – or objects sorted by colours and hues. She creates shapes by using photomontage to piece each image together, using rough outlines from the objects, formed by the constant repetition of similar or identical shapes. Barker also forms textures and depth using the sizes of each object, adding a 3D element to her work, as most of the textures with plastic objects are familiar to the modern world. The darkest areas within the image are always the black velvet background – it is portrayed as an endless abyss, which poses more importance when on the subjects of the photo when comparing them to the large negative space. The compositions are often unbalanced, with a varied density of items throughout the image, it usually leaves a more sparsely populated area in one half or corner of the photo.

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