Phyllida Barlow: Bad Copies

Phyllida Barlow is an artist and teacher who constantly questions the possibilities of sculpture by capturing a sense of the ‘now’.

This focused exhibition presents a selection of recently acquired drawings from the sculpture collection of Leeds Museums & Galleries, which is managed in partnership with the Henry Moore Institute; a collaboration that has built one of the strongest public collections of sculpture in Britain.

Known primarily for her large-scale installations made from salvaged materials that are constructed on-site, Barlow has a continuous practice of drawing which she uses to explore and record her visual ideas.

Describing them as ‘bad copies’, Barlow’s drawings are often derived from her environment, but never drawn from life; they range from swift biro and pencil sketches in notebooks and diaries, often appearing beside domestic reminders and lists, to more heavily worked acrylic drawings and oil paintings, which experiment with surface textures as well as colours, forms and arrangements.

Phyllida Barlow was born in 1944 in Newcastle, and lives and works in London. She was Professor at The Slade School of Fine Art and taught for over 40 years.

Barlow has previously held solo shows across Europe, and as one of the UK’s most significant sculptors, she has recently exhibited at Hauser & Wirth, London, and Kunstverein Nürnberg, Germany. This is her first solo exhibition in Leeds.