Audrey Barker’s career as an artist went through several different phases. She started out as a “brush painter” in the 1950s and in 1956 had two paintings included in the Royal Academy of Art’s annual exhibition. Her work was exhibited around the country, and much of it was sold, but, according to one of her friends, she failed to keep tabs on where it was dispersed. 

In the 1960s she was a teacher, at various schools and colleges, according to her CV. Several ex-pupils from a high school in Manchester remember her as a supportive and encouraging teacher. Then, in a 1969 note to the artist Joseph Cornell, she writes that she has retired from teaching. I think that she might have continued for a while, as a visiting lecturer at colleges and universities in the north east.

I’ve written about her connection to Cornell in a previous post, and her move away from painting to making boxed assemblages. While these were critically well-received, she didn’t continue making them. 

Her move from London to Cumbria, where her husband Denis was from, is likely to have had an impact on her work, as well as the illnesses that were said to have limited her artistic output. Yet Audrey Barker was in fact very active amongst the vibrant artistic community of Cumbria in the 1970s, a world away from the London galleries. Artists here developed supportive networks and collaborated on exhibitions and enterprises. As we’ve discovered, the Barkers’ successful business in the midst of these networks drew on Audrey and Denis’s artistic skills, along with other local artists and artisans.

Was Audrey’s vision for an accessible and inclusive arts centre influenced by the artistic community she was part of? She had seen what her friend Li Yuan-Chia had achieved with the LYC Museum and Gallery, for example. But her plans were also informed by her own experience as a disabled person, and she wanted to create something that would make a difference to the lives of  other disabled people.

The Barkers dedicated their life savings to Abbey Mill Arts Centre, but it was short-lived. It did, however, pave the way for Audrey’s productive period creating multi-sensory installations in the late 1980s and 1990s.

In trying to understand how Audrey Barker survived as an artist, I’ve been speaking to people who worked with her, including assisting with her installations. She was receiving benefits during her later life, so she would have become ensnared in the ‘benefits trap’, a situation familiar to many disabled artists. As DASH describes: “The benefits trap has been a massive block for disabled artists for decades with no sign of improving.” It holds disabled artists back in their careers and, as Audrey Barker experienced, it prevents them from being paid fairly – if at all – for their work. 

While Audrey was devising and coordinating the production of installations in a range of venues, including art galleries and museums, she was unable to take any money. Any income would have led to her losing her disability and housing benefits – an impossible situation. She made sure, however, that her assistants and collaborating artists were paid. Working in partnership with arts organisations meant that any funding could be administered by them.

I suspect that this situation not only meant that Audrey Barker wasn’t paid, but it also meant that she wasn’t fully recognised for her pioneering artistic practice. 
_{My research into Audrey Barker is supported by the British Art Network through the Emerging Curators Group 2024}.