Robbie Barber
(Texas, b. 1964)

Stroll in the Park, 2012
Welded steel and paint
9’ (H) x 9’ (W) x 5’ (D)

ARTIST’S STATEMENT:

My travels throughout rural America have attracted me to the strong visual character of this country’s vernacular architecture. Vintage lapboard houses, mobile homes, tobacco barns and agrarian-related structures have become regional icons that ultimately tell the stories of the inhabitants or builders. This implied history interests me deeply.I often fuse recognizable forms to create hybrid objects of fantasy, the results of which are often humorous, ironic or visually poetic in nature. In keeping with this,Stroll in the Park, a mobile home is transformed into a giant baby carriage, which lends new meaning to the phrase “baby boomer”. An homage to the homemade assemblages that dot the American roadside (dinosaurs, muffler men, cars on poles), Stroll in the Park elevates the mobile home to the level of an American icon, right beside monster trucks and professional wrestling.