Baker Artist Portfolios

Abstraction  - Evoking scenes, stories, and images.

In The Garden (Shadow Happenings) series, I trace sunlight as it interacts with garden plants  Marking light fluctuations allows one to observe what is happening beyond the foliage. It immerses one in the garden’s textures, fragrances, and colors to expand the experience. As the wind blows the hand delineates movements of the petals and leaves. After several hours of marking, the drawing becomes a record of moments spent.

This ongoing series explores the question "What is a drawing?" and how dimensionality, architectural space, and time can affect the development of a drawing. Shadows cast by the sun coming through a window (in relation to architecture) are traced onto paper. 3D marks (made with dowels) are then interrelated with the 2D lines, creating a dialogue between dimensions. Works are then placed on the walls, floors, and corners of a space to converse and see what happens next.

Foremost, my art begins with the question "What is drawing?" I work between mediums and dimensions to expand the concept of drawing that includes installation, photography, and works on paper. To further this investigation, I explore the relationship between mark making, time, space, and thinking to see how they can affect and redevelop each other. Works are composed of lines that are signs of time and, referencing artist Avis Newman, thought. Sunlight, shadow, daily life, movement, Martin Heidegger, and Eastern philosophy are influences.

Coley’s art often explores how trauma can materialize in cultural memory; it shines a light on overlooked or forgotten stories. Her stories are reflections of the physical, moral, and psychological struggles, encounters, and battles that are part of the human experience. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Coley continued to create important, thought-provoking art.

With culture and community at its core, a photograph usually denotes the existing world and with this series of photographs, “The New World” in production since 2014,  the artist wanted to create a new dimension through which a photograph could be the beginning of a new world. A world of endless possibilities where the viewers will feel enraptured and compelled to become passionate co-creators with him. This body of work, The New World, first started as a way to explore how we live.

I am on a journey that should be a movie. I am in the senior years, having the time of my life, fully engaged in many roles and meaningful activities. All of it is like a patchwork quilt with every chapter full of passion, commitment, activism, and then, beginning at the age of 62, my art that is life sustaining. I often say that " I paint my way through life" and indeed that is what I will continue to do.

The role of the artist is to champion social justice, to give a "voice" to the underserved, the marginalized, to assist the environmental advocates, and more, all for enhancing the wellbeing of humanity. We must never shy away from the frank portrayal of injustice and the hope for equity and justice for all.