Richard Baker (b. 1971) lives and works in Leeds, UK. He holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Leeds Metropolitan University and an MA in Creative Practice from Leeds Arts University. His work has been exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally, including at museums in China, The San Francisco Arts Institute, the National Museum of Poland in Gdansk, the Mall Galleries, London, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
He won the Wells Art Contemporary Patron’s Prize, 2020, and The Hix Award, 2019. He was shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize, 2020, and was runner up in the London Contemporary Art Prize, 2019. He was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize exhibition at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool in 2018. His work is included in the Priseman-Seabrook collection of 21st Century British painting and is held in many private collections worldwide.
Richard Baker’s small to medium scale oil paintings depict mid-century furniture and sometimes clothing, or other items. Reimagined from found photographs, these unpeopled and modestly scaled works invite the viewer to consider the hidden human histories behind seemingly insignificant objects. Often ignored, these objects bear witness to sensuous activity, be it lived, remembered, or mythologised.
The objects are presented dislocated and isolated, and appear as unadorned, formal arrangements in a restaging of the interrelationship between material, image, object, and time. Much of the meaning in these paintings comes from what is left unsaid, what is absent from the image, what is alluded to.
The Small Paintings Group © 2024
