Many of you know that Brett Baker is the sort of like the glue that holds together an unfathomably huge amount of the dialogue about painting on the internet together. That’s through his online magazine, everyone’s go-to, Painter’s Table. He’s also a painter. A really good painter, of thick, material-centric paintings. The paintings tend to use a controlled set of marks, usually parallel and evenly space. Because the paint is applied thickly and saturated with pigment, the surface undulates–both literally and visually–and allows for the eye to rove over the surface, forming and reforming the Gestalt. In my mind, this kind of puts Baker’s paintings in line with the best, most essential human rituals, like the Catholic Rosary or Native American ceremonies, just without the dogma. Baker has a show that just opened at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in NYC. See more of his work at his own website.
