Baker Artist Portfolios

It is my life's work to live up to the tradition laid by other great Baltimore artists that came before me by continuing to preserve community practices through curating and cataloguing the experiences of Baltimore residents through shared stories that I choose to weave in to mixed media illustrations. It is my aim to honor the people I live with in Baltimore through my work.

Artist Statement:

Conglomerates of needles + whips, ventilators + sex toys, blur the lines of where disability care ends and sex begins. Pieces of surreal body parts, unidentifiable skin fragments, appendages, and sensual images blend together the fluidity of sexuality, the changing, moving body and fluidity of gender. Bedroom colors and BDSM aesthetics reclaim this queer, trans, and disabled body’s sexual agency, autonomy and births pleasure from pain, whether masochism or finding joy and taking up space despite the social structures that does not want it to exist.

I am submitting an array of media to show how deep my research runs. I’m always finding new ways to contextualize and add substance to the subject matter. The ‘Renovations’ exhibit was a chance for me to explore my Black American roots in Baltimore and, more generally, the role that education and church plays in the lives of the African American community. 

"Banana Melt" was about global warming.  Imagine when the ice melts, how slippery would the floor be?  

The work was installed at Current Space in Baltimore, Maryland, 2015.  

The slippery-floor caution sign was screen printed by myself and James Bouche.  Found banana peel in ice was frozen with a curved top display freezer.

"A Stroll Down The North Avenue" was a commentary, documentation and reflection on the scenery of my daily commute of the blocks between Calvert Street to Howard Street on North Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland.  It is also a commentary on gluttony, greed, poverty, narcissism and negligence.  This piece is an experiment to bring forth the subject of a painting into 3 dimension.  As the painting suggested an idea and the setting, the 3 dimensional sculpture of the subject further validates the idea.  Such as the experience of meeting the person portrayed in a photograph in real life.  

"Square Basketball" was made to explore an alternative form of a basketball, the basket hoop, and the backboard.  The work was inspired by children's shape game.  A part of the work was a painting of a basketball player unsure of the user experience of the "Square Basketball" game.  The basketball player was intended to portray LeBron James, an American professional basketball player who was known to be one of the great basketball players.  It suggested that even him would have a hard time with it.  The interactive sculpture encouraged viewers to score a basket during the gallery hours.  "Squa

Double Barrel was an exhibition composed of 3 parts.  First part was a group of 4 paintings in frames narrating personal struggles and growth.  Second part was an installation titled, "The Worm".  Third part was an installation titled, "The Human Anatomy".  Double Barrel was a collection of work inspired from pop culture, media consumption, daily routines and social interactions.  

"Desert Dream" was an installation about personal clash of identity.  The subjects presented in the installation were regurgitations of pop culture and media consumption.  The installation is a self-portrait.  The composition of the installation is in 3 groups.  In the center, a skeleton-rabbit riding a horse symbolized the myself.  To the right hand side were a Godzilla monster and a grouping of images symbolized the pop culture consumption prior of immigration to the United States.  And to the left hand side were Chief Red Cloud, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, etc.

Double Dribble was an installation about personal mythologies.  It was a play to expand existing mythologies and add on invented ones.  The narrative could be read starting from either the left or the right end of the wall.  By focusing on the characters and eliminating the settings of their stories, they were liberated to interact with each other.  The intention was to create a large scale narrative with a mix of various subjects mimicing children's peel-and-stick stickers.  As the attraction of the peel-and-stick stickers were the characters, they could be sticked onto any surface/context, a