Maxine Walker
{{Short description|British-Jamaican photographer and critic (born 1962)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Maxine Walker (born 1962) is a British-Jamaican photographer and critic. Based in Handsworth and active between 1985 and 1997, Walker has been described by Rianna Jade Parker as "a force within the Black British Art movement".{{cite web | author=Rianna Jade Parker | author-link=Rianna Jade Parker | title=How British-Jamaican Photographer Maxine Walker Disrupted the Idea of an Approved Womanhood | website=frieze | date=19 August 2019 | url=https://www.frieze.com/article/how-british-jamaican-photographer-maxine-walker-disrupted-idea-approved-womanhood | access-date=15 February 2022 }} Her photographs emphasise the fictive nature of documentary convention, and "raise questions about the nature of identity, challenging racial stereotypes".{{cite web | title=Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience | website=Victoria and Albert Museum | url=https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/staying-power-photographs-of-black-british-experience | access-date=15 February 2022 }}
Life
Maxine Walker was born in 1962 in Birmingham, England.{{cite book|author-first=Andrea D.|author-last=Barnwell|author-link=|editor-link=Alison Donnell|editor=Alison Donnell|title=Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VfdpdZ9DwH0C&pg=PA319|year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-70025-7|page=319|chapter=Walker, Maxine}}
Walker's 1987 series Auntie Lindie's House challenged the unmediated nature of documentary photography, replicating photographic conventions within a fictional context. Black Beauty, a 1980s series, and Untitled, a series for the 1995 Self Evident exhibition, both consisted of self-portraits. Untitled contained a sequence of ten closely-cropped black and white photographs, in which Walker appeared to peel away successive layers of her surface skin.{{cite web | title=Maxine Walker: Untitled | website=Autograph | year=2019 | url=https://autograph.org.uk/exhibitions/maxine-walker-untitled }}
Walker has written various reviews and texts for art magazines and exhibition-related publication.{{cite book | editor1=Melanie Keen | editor2=Liz Ward | title=Recordings: A Select Bibliography of Contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British Art | year=1996 | publisher=inIVA in collaboration with the Chelsea College of Art and Design | isbn=1899846069 | page=108}} After Polareyes, a 1987 exhibition of black women photographers at the Camden Arts Centre, she co-edited and contributed to a short-lived journal of the same name. In 1999 she published a short artist's book in the series published by Autograph.{{cite book | author=Maxine Walker | title=Maxine Walker: Monograph | editor=Mark Sealy | editor-link=Mark Sealy | year=1999 | publisher=Autograph | isbn=1899282505 }}
Works
=Exhibitions=
- Polareyes: Black Women Photographers, Camden Arts Centre, 1987. With Brenda Agard, Margaret Andrews, Zarina Bhimji, Similola Coker, Joy Gregory, Rhona Harritte, Joy Kahumbu, Mumtaz Karimjee, Linda King, Jenny Mckenzie, Tracey Moffatt, Amina Patel, Ingrid Pollard, Samena Rana, Molly Shinhat, Sharon Wallace, Geraldine Walsh, Gloria Walsh, and Halina Zajac.
- Intimate Distance: Five Female Artists, The Photographers' Gallery, 1989. With Zarina Bhimji, Sutapa Biswas, Mona Hatoum and Ingrid Pollard.{{cite web | title=Intimate Distance: Five Female Artists |publisher=The Photographers’ Gallery| url=https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/intimate-distance-five-female-artists | access-date=15 February 2022 }}
- Self Evident, Ikon Gallery, August–September 1995. With Seydou Keita, Mama Casset, Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé and Ingrid Pollard.{{cite journal | author=Martina Attille | title=Scared of you: Martina Attille on Self Evident | journal=Women's Art Magazine | volume=67 | date=November–December 1995 }} Curated by Mark Sealy.
- (solo) UNTITLED, Autograph ABP, April–August 2019. Curated by Renée Mussai and Bindi Vora.
- (solo) UNTITLED, Midlands Arts Centre, April–June 2020.{{cite web | title=Maxine Walker: Untitled | website=What's On: Birmingham | date=25 February 2020 | url=https://www.whatsonlive.co.uk/birmingham/interviews/maxine-walker-untitled/15655 | access-date=15 February 2022 }}
=Writing=
- {{cite journal | title=Boxed Gems | journal=Polareyes: A Journal by and about Black Women working in photography | volume=1 | year=1987 | pages=42–43 }}
- {{cite journal | title=We do not Wish to do it Quietly | journal=Ten.8 | volume=27 | pages=42–45 }}
- {{cite journal | title=Testimony: Three Black Women Photographers | journal=Creative Camera | volume=4 | year=1987 | page=34}}
- {{cite journal | title=Beauty and the Beast: Have Images of Black Women in the Media Changed over the Years? | journal=Blackboard Review | volume=2 | year=1990 | pages=12–13 }}
- 'Intimate Distance', in {{cite book | editor1=Jo Spence | editor2=Patricia Holland | title=Family Snaps | location=London | publisher=Virago | year=1991 | pages=222–225 }}
- {{cite book | title=Maxine Walker: Monograph | editor=Mark Sealy | editor-link=Mark Sealy | year=1999 | publisher=Autograph | isbn=1899282505 }}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- {{cite journal | author=Joy Gregory | author-link=Joy Gregory | title=Fantasy: Joy Gregory Speaking to Maxine Walker | journal= Polareyes | volume=1 | year=1987 | pages=18–19 }}
- {{cite journal | author= | title=Portfolio: Maxine Walker | journal=Creative Camera | volume=8/9 | year=1987 | pages=42–43 }}
- {{cite journal | author=Gilane Tawadros | title=Redrawing the Boundaries: the Documentary work of David Lewis and Maxine Walker | journal=Ten.8 | volume=2 | issue=3 | date=Spring 1992 | pages=86–92 }}
External links
- {{cite web | author=Mariama Attah | url=https://autograph.org.uk/blog/beauty-for-all-the-photography-of-maxine-walker/ | title=Beauty For All: The Photography of Maxine Walker | date=11 August 2021}}
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Category:20th-century British photographers
Category:21st-century British photographers
Category:21st-century British women photographers
Category:Artists from Birmingham, West Midlands
Category:Black British photographers