Visual Arts

Leeds-based artist Richard Baker studied for a National Diploma in Fine Art at Hull College of Art & Design before graduating from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2003 with a BA (Hons). Since then, he's been very busy exhibiting his work at various venues in Leeds and Harrogate.

Richard reckons his current work has evolved through an unhealthy obsession with online auction sites - specifically with the sections devoted to modernist furniture! The unlikely source of Baker's inspiration - row upon row of Eames and Panton chairs, often tired, neglected and badly photographed - are his coveted objects.

Unable to own them, he has managed to acquire them through other means - by a considered process of layering, scraping, redrawing and glazing he carefully renders these objects his own. These are pared-down and stripped responses to the subject, becoming stains or memories on the canvas.

His work has been described as influenced by artists such as Luc Tuymans, whose work is also imbued with a sense of empty melancholy, or Michael Borremans’ unsettling images of workers colluding in ritualistic activity. A sense of a missed narrative; a stage after the actors and audience have departed. We are left only with more questions...

Previous Exhibitions:
Space for Waiting - The Reliance, Leeds, 2005
Artists for the Future - The Gascoigne Gallery, Harrogate, 2004
Leeds Open Exhibition - Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, 2003
The Gascoigne Painting Prize - exhibition of finalists', Harrogate, 2003
Fine Art Degree Show, Leeds Metropolitan University, 2003
The Gascoigne Painting Prize - exhibition of finalists', Harrogate, 2002
From Time to Time - with Charlotte Harris, The Fine Art Gallery, Leeds, 2002

Prizes:
The Gascoigne Painting Prize, The Gascoigne Gallery, Harrogate 2002

'In their chairs' - New Paintings by Richard Baker can be viewed at Leeds College of Art & Design, Blenheim Walk from Wednesday 11 February to Wednesday 4 March 2009.