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), which was recently acquired by the Arts Council Collection. In 2019 a retrospective of Baker’s work featuring paintings, sketchbooks, storyboards and prints made between 1970 and 2019 was presented at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, curated by Clara Zarza. The exhibition, titled Tarros de Chutney, included the artist’s acclaimed Diary Drawings (1997–2008), and a selection of Timed Drawings made by Baker in 1984, when her children were small, shown for the first time.
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, installations and exhibitions include An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976/2023) as part of Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 at the Whitworth, Manchester (2025); Burning Down the House: Rethinking Family, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2024); Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, curated by Hettie Judah for Arnolfini, Bristol, MAC, Birmingham (2024), and Millennium Gallery, Sheffield (2024/2025); An Edible Family in a Mobile Home (1976/2023) 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).
A selection of Baker’s Timed Drawings (1984–1985) are on show at Dundee Contemporary Arts until 13 Jul 2025 as part of the Hayward Touring exhibition Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood, curated by Hettie Judah.
Bobby Baker lives and works in London.
