Born in Luton, England, Barker began his studies at Luton College of Technology and Art in 1957. He left school after two years and worked for a period at Vauxhall Motors. The experience proved formative. Chrome, industrial finish, and the visual vocabulary of manufactured surfaces would later become central to his work, giving his sculptures their distinctive balance of wit, precision, and seduction.

By the mid-1960s, Barker began casting the subjects that would define his early career: food, flowers, household items, and the emblems of popular culture. A pivotal visit to New York in 1966 introduced him to the work of Tom Wesselmann, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Ray Johnson, and Robert Watts, as well as to Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. This experience validated the artistic trajectory he had established independently. Two years later, in 1968, he had his first solo exhibition at Robert Fraser Gallery in London

Among Barker’s early works is Victorian Fruit, 1969, a chrome-plated bronze sculpture of a basket holding a pineapple, pears, and apples set beneath a glass bell jar. Here the perishable becomes permanent, elevated into sculpture. Barker’s humor animates the arrangement, which reflects his keen eye for display, desire, and the strange dignity of ordinary things. He carried this approach into later works, including Foot Stool, 1983, a chrome-plated bronze sculpture of a footstool standing on two feet; Leg, 1995, a leg-shaped vase made of polished aluminum; and Six Elephants, 1997, featuring six bronze elephants joined in a circle and set on a mirrored aluminum disc.

Barker’s ongoing interest in the tension between nature and manufacture may be seen in two sculptures centered on flowers. In Flowers, 1974, a bottle holds two flowers that look like cookie cutters. In a later work, Roses, 1983, he highlights the rose, a delicate flower imbued with symbolism. Like much of Barker’s best work, Roses is simultaneously easily legible and layered with meaning; it prompts reflection on the place of the rose in nature and culture.

With Venus Escargot, 1987, Barker turns to classical art with characteristic irreverence. In his bronze head of the goddess of love and beauty, he places two snails where her eyes should be. The ancient goddess becomes a surrealist figure, positioned within the language of contemporary culture.

Barker exhibited widely in London and Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with his work included in shows at Anthony d’Offay, Bruno Bischofberger, and Baukunst Galerie. His sculptures were also shown in numerous exhibitions of Pop art, alongside artists like Peter Blake and David Hockney. At once straightforward and strange, Barker’s work continues to resonate today.