- Venue
- South Square Centre
- Location
Hard Light and Soft Play
a new series of work by emerging artist David Baker
A quiet investigation of form and function sees David Baker’s first solo exhibition, simply titled #1. The placement of work throughout the room is orderly and calculated, highlighting the relationships between viewers and objects within the gallery. In cumulatively generating this environment, the artist creates work that becomes site specific, using the surfaces of the given space to embed ideas and form. Viewers are presented with a series of intuitive spatial responses that have been diligently tended but never overworked. It is a carefully managed and manicured space that allows for each work to breath for itself.
Baker’s choice of material establishes a common thread throughout the exhibition. References to the vernacular introduce a playful element to the otherwise sparse forms, creating a sense of the familiar while elevating the banality of the everyday object. An economy of materials characterise much of the work, as seen in Untitled (500 sheet pad of A4 paper with every two sheets paper-clipped together in one corner). Baker’s slight and selective manipulation of the paper builds a smooth curvilinear line with sculptural grace. The work functions as evidence of the artist’s hand performing a methodical and repetitive act to shape material without eroding its original form. The unassuming dimension of Baker’s smaller works also invites closer inspection, revealing the careful precision of their basic construction.
The delicacy and soft play inherent to each piece establishes individual integrity whilst the combined body of work creates an overall sense of playfulness. In this way Baker’s work is at once challenging and endearing. The text-based work, Untitled (‘subtle’) incorporates itself into the white wall of the gallery and is gently underwritten with a human sensitivity, commenting on its own quiet intervention. The letters are first added with a stencilled appliqué and then painted over with multiple layers of white. The artist then removes the original stencil to create a negative space that has essentially been made part of the gallery. Evidence of a calm and methodical practice works to blur the boundary between the exhibition space and the art object, allowing the resonance of these simple interventions to resonate with playful irony.
There is a fresh clarity about the work of David Baker; an identifiable optimism that reminds us of the potential of the art object to invigorate our perception. An arrangement of light bulbs is transformed into a glowing ring in Untitled (a number of light bulbs in a circle), so bright that it leaves a circular imprint upon the viewer’s passing gaze. The walls and floor of the gallery become permeable, acting as working material rather than structural limits of a given space. Rigid confines are made soft, challenging the hard and fast assumptions of the viewing experience and revealing pockets of gentle inquiry. Through the ironic interplay of high concept and humble material, Baker makes visible the conversion of function to form, of utility to viewing pleasure.
