Born in 1945 in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A. After studying at Syracuse University and Parsons School of Design in New York City, Barbara Kruger worked in graphic design for Condé Nast Publications at Mademoiselle magazine. Graphic design has become the biggest influence on her work.

In the early 1970s, the artist started showing artwork in galleries in New York and by the end of the decade she developed her signature style using large-scale black-and-white images overlaid with text.

The artist prompts us to interrogate our own positions and questions how our identities are formed within culture, through representation in language and image. The phrases in her works often include pronouns (you, your, I, we) addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, consumerism and sexuality.

Photo: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders