Brett Baker: New Paintings
Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York
February 17 – March 24, 2018
Dear Painters’ Table Readers,
I would like to invite you all to an exhibition of new paintings at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York.
Please join me at the opening reception on Saturday, February 17 from 3-6 pm. On view will be a selection of paintings from 2016-18. In addition to various small works, I am particularly excited to share a new large painting that has occupied me for the better part of this past year.
Thank you as always for supporting Painters’ Table – I hope to see you all at the show.
Best,
Brett
The full press release is below:
Brett Baker
Recent Paintings
February 17 – March 24, 2018
Reception: Saturday, February 17 3-6 pm
The Elizabeth Harris Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new and recent paintings by Brett Baker. This will be the artist’s third exhibition with the gallery. The show will be up from February 17 to March 24. An opening reception for the artist will be held Saturday, February 17 from 3 – 6 pm.
Baker’s intensely worked paintings are characterized by an unusually physical interplay of drawing and color. He builds each painting over several years, layering and removing rows of vertical and diagonal marks of muted, intense color. Critic Jed Perl, describing Baker’s work, has noted, “Their tight-packed, elongated rectangular forms—which are invariably based on a rather simple grid—bring to mind some of the layered compositions of Paul Klee as well as some of the textiles of Anni Albers.”
Where Baker’s previous paintings evoked his immediate surroundings by incorporating perceptual color, his new works seek more direct accountability to subject while remaining relentlessly abstract. The centerpiece of this exhibition is a large-scale painting titled Aquarium (2017-2018). Following a tradition of artists inspired to paint this subject, including Matisse, Klee and Balthus, Baker draws on observations from the motif to enliven and disrupt the expected regularity of the grid. The resulting paintings become dynamic, abstract environments infused with and energized by nature.
The artist writes: “The question I’m trying to answer is how does one begin and end in abstraction and still realize a true and real impression of the world beyond the painting?”
Brett Baker lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina. He earned an MFA in Painting from Boston University and his awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been featured and reviewed in The New York Review of Books, The New Criterion, Two Coats of Paint and many other blogs and publications. In addition to being an artist, he is the editor of Painters’ Table (painters-table.com), an online painting magazine; he also writes frequently about art.
The gallery is located at 529 West 20th St., 6th Floor and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 – 6pm.
For further information contact Miles Manning at 212 463-9666.