Nancy Baker
“Nothing More, Nothing Less”
In this world where our attention is being pulled in a million different directions, where same set of facts seem to elicit a myriad of often confusing conclusions, I committed myself to create a series of paintings that are direct and reflect what I see and how I see it. There are instances when I question whether the assumptions and inferences made about artists and their work truly align with the artists’ intentions. I have aimed to paint images that are straight-forward, honest and not likely to be misconstrued.
Say what you will, give them whatever meaning or significance you want, they are the result of the hard work of studying an object or place that I love and making a painting of it.
I don’t make an effort in my own work to address the challenging times we live in, though I admire that impulse in others. Indirectly, however, these pieces are an engaged response to the demands of a technocratic world, where painting something called a “still life” feels like an act of defiance. My own quiet rebellion. It’s enough, for me, to propose that there is transcendence in a vase half full of water, filled with roses, lit in the afternoon sun. That there is inherent significance in capturing the pleasing shape of a building settled in the landscape.
If there is any symbolic or metaphorical meaning attached to the work at all — it’s that there are quiet moments and objects of exquisite beauty waiting patiently for our attention, if we cut out the noise and put our focus on them. I hunger for that.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Nancy Baker was born in Houston, Texas, where she began taking art classes as a young child. She studied art and art history at Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut, Newcomb College and the University of Texas.
In New York she attended the Isabel O’Neill Studio for the Art of the Painted Finish and founded a decorative painting business, completing large scale murals, faux finishes and painted furniture for interior designers in public and private settings.
In 1982 she relocated her business to Washington, D.C. and continued her studies at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo, Md., at the Corcoran College of Art in D.C. and completed a residency at the Vermont Studio Center. She has attended multiple workshops with several well- known artists of contemporary realism. She participated in the juried Fredericksburg, VA. Plein Air Festival and Wayne Art Center Plein Air Festival.
Nancy lives and works in Thomaston, Maine. She has exhibited at Mars Hall Gallery, Craignair Gallery and at Granite Gallery in Tenant’s Harbor.
