Barker who graduated from Canterbury School of Art in1990 uses people and places, myths, folklore, and memories as his subject matter. He is repeatedly drawn to the same two places for inspiration, the marshes around his home where he loses himself and most importantly a remote village in Northern Bulgaria where he spends a lot of his time.The people and experiences from these places enter the paintings through a vivid exploration of intimacy, identity, and transformation through expressive figuration. There is a tension between vulnerability and vitality smeared with paint, thick in places and scored with a palette knife. The work is visceral and felt rather than known.
The artist’s work has been described as bold, unapologetic, and visually confrontational but still allows the viewer to linger and decode. Paintings refuse to settle into one meaning, they are emotional without being literal, symbolic without being didactic, an invitation to discomfort, beauty and ambiguity.

Barker too is unapologetic he paints because he wants to and for no other reason