Bobby Baker’s acclaimed intersectional feminist practice includes performance, drawing, and installation, and persistently exposes the undervalued and stigmatised aspects of women’s daily lives, exemplified by pioneering works such as Drawing on a Mother’s Experience (1988) and Kitchen Show (1991).
Born in 1950 in Kent, UK, she graduated from Painting at St. Martins School of Art (1972, now Central St Martins) and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Queen Mary University London.
Performances and installations include An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976) remade in 2023 as part of Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 at Tate Britain, London (2023/2024); EPIC DOMESTIC at The Tetley, Leeds as part of Leeds 2023 Year of Culture (2023); Great & Tiny War, Newcastle (2018); An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976), London; Drawing on a (Grand) Mother’s Experience, WOW-Women of the World Festival, London (2015); Kitchen Show (1991), London, Adelaide Festival and touring; How to Live, Barbican Centre, London (2004); Table Occasions 9–15, Münchner Künstlerhaus, Munich (1998); How to Shop, Chicago International Festival of Arts (1996); Cook Dems, Harbour Front Centre, Toronto (1992); and Box Story, Arnolfini, Bristol (2001). Selected solo exhibitions include Tarros de Chutney, La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2019); Art Supermarket and Perpetuity in Icing, ICA, London (1978); and Diary Drawings: ‘Mental Illness’ and Me 1997–2008, Wellcome Collection, London (touring exhibition) (2009).
Current and forthcoming projects include the Hayward Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, curated by Hettie Judah for Arnolfini, Bristol (9 Mar–2 Jun 2024), touring to MAC, Birmingham (22 Jun–9 Sep 2024); Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (24 Oct 2024–21 Jan 2025) and Dundee Contemporary Arts (spring 2025 dates tbc); Burning Down the House: Rethinking Family, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (1 Jun–8 Sep 2024); and An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976) remade in 2023 as part of Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 at Tate Britain, touring to the Whitworth, Manchester (7 Mar–3 Jun 2025).
Bobby Baker lives and works in London.