PRESS RELEASE MARCH 2011
BARNABY BARFORD – LOVE IS...
DAVID GILL GALLERIES is delighted to announce an exhibition of new work by BARNABY BARFORD from 27th May to 30th June 2011, in London.

Pornography, orgies and certain sexual practices are not subjects that we expect to see represented in the polite world of porcelain figurines. But then, Barnaby Barford, an artist who for nearly ten years has worked with ceramics to create his unique narrative pieces, has never come up with obvious. Previous series have dealt with plastic surgery, US-Soviet relations, binge-drinking and ASBOs, in scenes played out on stark white plinths by figurines taken from both ceramic’s aristocratic history – Meissen, Royal Doulton – and it’s cheap and cheerful gift shop variant.

In his latest series, Barford turns his attention to the tricky space between lust and love and the pleasures and problems inherent in pornography. A large-scale mirror frame, that looks like a flamboyant piece of decorative art, is an accumulation of 500 exquisite handmade porcelain tiles featuring the covers of magazines ranging from the winsome Legshow to the frankly named Backdoor. Two-way mirrors recall the Victorian peepshow; a little boy appears to be waiting innocently, until the light is switched on, taking him to the centre of an intriguing sexual encounter. A classic courting coupleturn out to be negotiating something less fragrant than pure love. 

“I’m exploring the difference between love and lust,” says Barford. “and to a certain extent looking at what each means to us today.  How Love is beautiful, everlasting, charitable, heavenly, it is something we all strive for in life.  Lust is momentary, sinful, selfish, sometimes brutal.  I think more and more we mistake feelings of love with those of lust.  I’m not interested in only porn per se – and it comes in many forms from reasonably pleasant to absolutely horrific – but I am interested in how we learn what relationships and sex are about, and in what order.” Perhaps the little boy pushing a barrow-load of top-shelves magazines up a hill, looking for all the world like the glowing boy in the Hovis ads, has really missed out on the innocence of youth.