Wayne Barker (, Pretoria), South African visual artist. Barker is based in Johannesburg. He rose to prominence in the late 80s, at the height of political unrest under the Apartheid regime. His work has featured in several global biennales, art fairs and important retrospective exhibitions. He works in various mediums, including but not limited to painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, performance and installation. In addition to collaborations with other artists, Barker has collaborated with the Qubeka Beadwork Studio based in Cape Town, to realise large scale glass beadworks. Early life Barker was born in Pretoria on 27 July 1963 to a white, working-class family at the height of Apartheid. Barker's father was a South African Airforce pilot, later turned commercial pilot and as a result, Barker and his siblings grew up on the Valhalla military base in Pretoria. Valhalla is the oldest Airforce base in the country, functional since 1921. Growing up in the highly conservative atmosphere of Pretoria in the 70s could in some ways be seen as a catalyst and contributing factor to Barker's particularly rebellious and aggressive attack on that exact conservatism. In Artist's Monologue, Barker recounts his childhood: {{quote|We were absolutely part of a system where you were taught to hate black people," says Barker today. "It was entrenched in virtually every conversation at home." Yet he also recalls family gatherings as "quite real and warm, like there was a sort of gemutlich vibe. You had drunk uncles playing match boxes and singing Sarie Marais and all that stuff.|Wayne Barker – Artist's Monograph, 2000, Chalkham Press}} Barker and his brother attended Glen High School in Pretoria, before his expulsion in 1976 after being arrested for buying marijuana. In his teens, Barker left home to learn woodcarving on the coast at Nature's Valley in the Western Cape. In 1983, after having failed art history at Michaelis, Barker returned home to his father's insistence that he join the South African military as three generations of Barker men before him had. To Barker, the SANDF represented everything about a South Africa in which he had no desire or aptitude to participate in. At the time, the tense political climate had seen a previously unknown escalation, and was straining under intense pressure both internationally and from within. The increased resistance to the apartheid regime had resulted in more and more military raids on private residences, and human rights violations. However, despite