For emerging Australian artist Kate Baker, bold experimentation in the studio has produced innovative and evocative works that are being appreciated both nationally and internationally.
Profile by Ali Noble.
“For me there is craft and art in all mediums. I have never understood the separation of one or another material into the differing camps. Glass is a very technical medium, but then so is playing a musical instrument or painting. Whilst glass has traditionally been used in a more utilitarian and decorative context, for me glass has always been a material – a liquid that will pretty much do anything”
Kate Baker 2011
For glass artists, concerns of materiality appear implicit to the practise. The actual or perceived fragility of the glass, weight, density, translucence, surface quality and the necessary physicality required to actualise glass works – these characteristics convey materiality whether or not this is the practitioner’s primary intention. Kate Baker, compelled not only by the unique properties of glass, amplifies the potential of the medium via skills and methods commonly found in the visual arts realm.
In particular, Baker’s poetic and figurative photography, screen-printing and the use of a canvas-like format with a customised wall hanging system speak of her curiosity to investigate, and utilise, conventional visual arts signifiers. Before graduating from the Glass Workshop at the Australian National University School of Art in Canberra in 1999, Baker studied photography, sculpture and printmaking; influences readily identifiable in her work.
Baker’s expansive approach to her practise has been validated in recent years by her growing national and international profile. Baker has been a finalist in the Ranamok Glass Prize three times, was included in the 2007 International Exhibition of Glass Kanazawa in Japan, and in 2010 was the recipient of the prestigious Gold Award for e-merge, Bullseye’s Biennial juried competition. In addition, Baker was also the recipient of a New Work Emerging Artist grant by the Australia Council for the Arts in 2010.
2011 has been an exciting year for Baker, with a successful solo exhibition, Cipher, at Portland’s eminent Bullseye Gallery, followed by her inclusion in SOFA (Sculpture Object Functional Art Fair) Chicago and finally her latest exhibition titled Encode at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney. The works from these exhibitions confirm a confident technical, conceptual and aesthetic trajectory for the artist.
Baker has identified the work Untitled-diptych-Cipher Series as the primary piece from which all her latest works have evolved. Untitled-diptych-Cipher Series developed out of Baker’s interest in super-imposing one image over another. To achieve the desired outcome demanded dedicated experimentation, resulting in a gratifyingly steep technical learning curve.
Baker’s process begins with taking photos, sometimes in a studio setting, followed by a period of manipulating and designing images on the computer. Baker then silk-screens heat resistant enamels onto different layers of glass before finally fusing them together. Having melted the layers together, Baker spends time grinding the surfaces and edges of the work to achieve the exact shape and texture she wants. The embossed imagery (in this case the computer code) is ‘cut’ into the surface of the work using a light sensitive sandblasting resist.
Baker reveals that “the process of photographing the models and working with the images later is fascinating – it is a very rich source of content for me and is at the core of what interests me in the work.” Thus the manifest sensitivity of Baker’s work is not embodied solely within the glass itself, as her displayed works are elegantly secure on the wall or satisfyingly sturdy on the plinth. The vulnerability and human ‘ness’ in her work seeks expression primarily through her initial contact with, and the subsequent photographing of, her subjects.
Untitled-diptych-Cipher Series has a woman in the first panel and man in the second. Standing in direct relationship to the photographer, their gaze is assertive but not aggressive. They appear as individuals, together. Layered into the work are images of Renaissance sculptures as well as computer code which reflects the artist’s curiosity about the human experience ‘as a cocktail of cultural, social and technological references – separate but also intrinsic to our selves’.
In Untitled-Cipher Series, also a favourite of the artist, the images used isolate a moment between two people. The images carry the tension and possibility of human drama as experienced through relationships. This sense of theatre is emphasised by the uniformity of the subject’s clothes, they look like they are rehearsing a scene from a play. Baker observes “I often want the figures to have an ‘android’ like quality but it is fascinating how they can have both this kind of ‘cold’ feel whilst also (often simultaneously) have a very emotional and raw feel to them.”
The titles of the Baker’s work Cipher, Binary and Encode, combined with the etching of code over her subjects and fused into the images evokes the complexity of relationships. The spoken and the unspoken, the mysterious sense that people are essentially unknowable is emphasised by the limitations of language; we can feel like we are speaking in code to one another, often not the same code.
For Baker, the code is derived from the existing images in the work. The artist puts the images into the computer and translates them into text files. Essentially the text in the work is the computer code for writing that image. Once understood, this fascinating method may appear cleverly self-referential, an inventive form of portraiture. However, Baker’s use of code is also metaphoric,
as it explores not only the nuanced relationships between people, but also our relationship to technology. She is interested in using code ‘to talk about a psychological environment created by modern day technology. Almost everything can be reduced to data and this permeates our experience in contemporary society. We are immersed in it and the work is talking about data or technology as an environment rather than a separate construct’.
Enhancing Baker’s experimental modus operandi is her potent use of colour, particularly notable in the Cipher series (exhibited in the USA). Untitled-Tetraptych-Cipher Series, is saturated with an electric palette of which Baker has said, “I guess I was becoming a bit too ‘safe’ in my avoidance of colour and I wanted to break out of that corner. I also found the use of colour to be quite dynamic in the work. It gives the work a certain energy or presence that I like.” Visually striking, Baker’s colours are seductive and add depth to the works, particularly those that are freestanding.
Throughout Baker’s work is the skilful evidence of a dedicated studio practise. Baker’s experimentation with materials and processes matched by her inquiry into the nature of contemporary life has produced works that are both enigmatic and spirited. With such an innovative approach to her work, we can anticipate an exciting future for Kate Baker.
Ali Noble is a Sydney based writer and artist represented by James Dorahy Project Space, Sydney. (Quotes taken from interview with Kate Baker 12 November 2011.)
Published in Arts Craft 2011