Hearts are a recurring theme in Barker's sixty-year career as a sculptor. During the 1960s he cast many objects decorated with or containing hearts. The rawness of the muscle displayed in the current work is arresting. Whereas the playful heart shapes of his youth referred to love and desire, the present work communicates the power of life and death. By placing it on a cast of a rock, Barker honours the 'Heart' as the principal muscle, the vital source of life.

By replicating functional, mass-produced objects in gleaming metals, Barker has redefined Marcel Duchamp's concept of the 'ready-made'. His recreations of the ordinary awaken a sense of amazement at the beauty of the familiar, reinventing the surrounding world, giving his art a life-enhancing quality. His metal casts of 'ready-mades' predate the iconic 1980s ‘Luxury and Degradation’ series of sculptures by Jeff Koons.

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.