Luke Barker

Painting for many years, Luke Barker has evolved his artwork to encapsulate the human condition.

Focusing on people in high density urban settings, Luke's work captures both the behavior, diversity and spirit of society, and the city environment we have created and simultaneously adapted to, by living in such a high concentration of numbers.

Luke feels that by studying people and the environments we live in, he is able to find an immense amount of ever changing subject matter, and also can point out a vast number of character traits of individuals among us, each uniquely altered by their personal experiences in this field in which we live.

The city environment itself, more and more proves a worthy subject topic in Luke's work, as it is as often changing and unique as the people found within it. The added intrigue for Luke is to capture aspects of these environments which we all in some way can relate to. They are only existing because of the human psychological need to gather and cohabitate in such an extreme way, and to keep building these fortresses called cities around us.

The ever growing body of Luke's artwork is in effect, a constantly developing storyline accounting the modern human race.

Luke was a finalist in this year's 2011 Wynne Prize.