Sally Barton
BA Fine Art – Chelsea College of Arts, 2021
Sally Barton’s practice is heavily influenced by her childhood growing up in South Yorkshire. She was raised in the ashes of industry, community and collectivism and her practice references the stories she was told growing up in Sheffield, from the tales of industrial action under Thatcher to the traumatic events at the Hillsborough disaster.
Through film, collage, textiles, and performance, she examines the importance of inter-generational relationships and storytelling within working-class families such as my own, as well as exploring the North of England and the unique cultures and aesthetics of social class in Britain. She aims to redefine her culture and history through alternative aesthetics and repurposed imagery, exploring the performance of class through the dancing picket lines of Orgreave to the ‘costumes’ worn by football fans, while in turn subverting gender norms through colour and addressing more sinister themes of collective trauma and loss in post-industrialised communities.
Her practice is playful and often childlike. It is routed in experimentation and a joy of making. From her great-grandad in the steel mills, to her grandad designing union badges, or to herself at the studio in Chelsea – there is a legacy in creation and making. She is merely the next generation to reflect on her city and culture. Aesthetically re-imaging our history to keep her family’s stories alive.
Awards and residencies:
Shortlisted for the Martin Parr 'Only Human' photography competition at the National Portrait Gallery, 2019
Instagram: @bartonmade
"As well as exploring class, my work also explores by relationship to gender and through bright colours and ‘feminine’ aesthetics, I reframe these males dominated histories."
