For most of her life, Barbara Walker has poured her anger about political and personal events into her art. “When I’m trying to understand something, I turn to my work; it feels cathartic,” she says. “Maggi Hambling said your art should be your best friend. Those words really resonate with me.”
Creating art helped her when her son, Solomon, was being repeatedly stopped and searched by Birmingham police as a 17-year-old; the difficult period inspired a series of pieces, Louder Than Words, combining portraits of the teenager with reproductions of the handwritten police tickets issued to him. The absurd pretexts cited by West Midlands police for stopping him are painstakingly reproduced: “Seen acting suspicious, pointing at bar staff through window.”
