During a three-week visit to New York in April 1966, Barker became acutely aware of American consumer culture embodied by the Coca-Cola bottle. His friendships with Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein and Tom Wesselmann focussed his attention on pure Pop Art language. Barker cast his first Coke bottle immediately upon his return to London in May 1966. In 1968, Barker returned to the Coke bottle as a subject for two years, when he subjected it to numerous permutations: bottles in pairs or groups of three, with or without straws, upright and on their side, with caps on, off, in the process of being removed.

Barker’s latest series of Coke bottles, this time rendered in shiny enamel colours, was inspired by his job as a youth at the Luton Vauxhall Car Factory. The enamel colours were sourced in the car manufacturing industry.

The work of Clive Barker is in museum collections worldwide including: National Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; British Museum, London; Tate, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Museum für moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art.