She had an important influence on younger generations of artists; at the Slade her students included Rachel Whiteread and Ángela de la Cruz.

The family moved to Richmond, west London, after the war, and her childhood experiences of bomb damage would inspire much of her lifelong work.

Barlow found an interest in everyday, convenient materials like cardboard, polystyrene, scrim, and cement[10] and how she could create abstracted pieces of work that placed a sense of elevated meaning to them.

Forming an environment in which her viewers can reflect on the work and explore the material and processes used to create it was one of her main motivations in her practice.

[14] Drawing on memories of familiar objects from her surroundings, Barlow's practice was grounded in an anti-monumental tradition characterised by her physical experience of handling materials, which she transformed through processes of layering, accumulation and juxtaposition.

[15] "Obtrusive and invasive, Barlow's large-scale sculptural objects are frequently arranged in complex installations in which mass and volume seem to be at odds with the space around them.

[19] After being awarded the Kunstpreis Aachen [de] in 2012, Barlow was commissioned to do a solo exhibition for the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst in Germany.

[21] In 2013, Barlow presented a solo exhibition entitled HOARD at The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.

[24] For the 2017 Venice Biennale, Barlow unveiled her powerfully industrial and bulbous Folly series, which took over both a sanitised indoor space and the idyllic Venetian outdoors.

[25] Barlow initially planned for her installation of 41 'baubles' to be hanging from planks that jutted from facade of the pavilion but this vision had to be altered due to expense; they were ultimately displayed in a way that resembled lollipops.

[5] Graham Sheffield, the Director Arts at the British Council at the time, wrote that Barlow was selected for her "challenging and imposing sculptures" which unsurprisingly commanded a distinct and powerful presence at the 57th Biennale.

The works were a site specific collection of large scale, brutalist sculptures which were created in response to the architecture of the RA building.

[29] Barlow was a member of the juries that selected Doris Salcedo (2016),[30] Pierre Huyghe (2017),[31] Isa Genzken (2019)[32] and Michael Rakowitz (2020)[33] for the Nasher Prize.