It’s a physical and intuitive process for Baker, looping back and forth with these disparate objects, following their lead in the studio. Focusing on capturing space in her work, Baker leaves large swaths of the ground showing, and then hones in on details and subtleties within. Her process-based investigation defies the boundaries of a rectilinear canvas, bringing autonomy to each work.
Neither predictable nor arbitrary, no two shapes are the same, and all knowingly nod to the implication of mapped geographic territory. Natural materials, such as buckskin, willow, buffalo hide, parfleche, and for the first time, beads, are brought into the work, allowing her additional ways to explore texture, while simultaneously grounding her objects in a long tradition of meaning, both functional and spiritual. Her selection of rugged industrial materials forced into relations with more delicate and natural partners serves a hopeful vision for our world – at once abject and beautiful. This aspirational joy is furthered in these newest works through brightly saturated and calmly pitched hues that dileneate landscapes ripe for play and meditation on their horizons. Scale is used to envelop the viewer and invites us to slow down and be bathed in her work as in a forest, big sky, or sea.
Halsey McKay
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