Barton was born in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1975 and lives and works in London. He graduated from an
MA in Fine Art Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 2007 where he was
awarded the Tim Mara Print Prize and the Tom Bendham drawing prize for his
final show. He was also selected for Wallpaper magazine’s Graduate Directory.
Other prizes he has received include the 20/21 Century Art Prize and the Tim
Mara Calgary Exchange both in 2006. Recent exhibitions include ‘Postgraduate
Printmaking in London’ at the Clifford Chance Galleries, RA Summer Exhibition
2008, and the 20/21 Century Art Fair. He also has work in several collections
including the Tim Mara Trust, the Royal College of Art Print Archive and the
Royal Academy Schools Print Archive.
Currently,
Barton divides his time between his Print Fellowship at the Royal Academy
Schools and his studio in Hackney Wick. Ongoing projects include creating new
work for the front of the Jerwood Space in London and a commission as the guest
artist to exhibit alongside the open submission at Originals 09.
In his
creative practice Barton Hargreaves combines traditional printmaking
techniques, digital processes, lens-based media, and the artist’s hand to make
prints, drawings, videos and installations. Through these processes he explores
issues of time and space, being and non-being; issues which he sees as central
to the experience of being human.
"Through
communication technologies such as the mobile phone, the internet and
instantaneous digital imaging it seems that we can be in many places at the
same time. But maybe we are, in fact, barely in any place at any time. There
seems to be a lack of focus, an almost constant absence from the here and now. Are
we entering, or creating even, another new world or consciousness?"