Baker Artist Portfolios

Site specific sculpture - entrances, railings, gates and other amenities for urban streetscapes

Photography by John Dean 

"A rock sits on the gallery floor side by side with its twin, a copy of itself cast in iron. Would you look at the shadowy concavities, craggy angles and weightiness of this rock as closely if it sat alone? Staged with its duplicate, it invites puzzling out the differences between its grainy mineral textures and the faintly velvety rusting surface of the casting. The intense heat of molten metal comes to mind, but how does that compare with the unimaginable fiery temperatures and pressures that formed the rock?

Copper, Aluminum and iron castings made from shards of trees that have been hit by lightning.

Exploration of form, material and light.
The chain-link fabric objects become catalysts in the site and perform as perceptual devices or monitors in the landscape, bringing attention to their surroundings.

The video installations bring together the various interests and media that I have been working with over the past several years. It is also heavily influenced by my observations of nature and my interest in the physical presence of material, the history of an object and the use of technology.

Over the past several years I have been working with the metal casting process to create my sculpture. The sources for my work are drawn from the landscape and the processes that have formed it, the scale and power of industry, and the effect that environmental forces have on human ordering, ranging from remote ancient ruins to urban archeology.

I see the processes and elements used to shape metal in the foundry as a metaphor for the forces that have shaped and are shaping our environment.