waves of chance & particles of fate
Bryan Baker
25 October 2019 - 18 November 2019
OPENING RECEPTION Friday, 25 October 2019, 5 - 8 pm
Bio
Bryan is a letterpress printmaker and designer living in Knoxville, TN. He is the co-founder of Striped Light, a community letterpress printshop that also does custom printing, and fine art editions. In 2003 he received his MFA in printmaking from the University of Tennessee. He has taught at Arrowmont, Ox-Bow, Penland, The Center for Book Arts (NYC), UT Knoxville, Clarion University, and the College for Creative Studies.
Artist Statement
I spend much of my time in the studio doing relief prints, and hand-printing limited edition of works using antique letterpress equipment. Using minimal elements, and by printing directly from physical objects on the bed of the press, my hope is that rather than making distinct pictures or representations I am instead able to capture a sense of things briefly interacting with each other on the page. I present these very simple visual forms to investigate the subtle moments where things may shift in the mind of the observer, to almost become something else - but stop right there to render that delicate brink.
An ongoing series that I am working on involves printing with a large number of dice. They are held together tightly on the bed of a printing press while a thin layer of ink is applied to their upper faces, impressions are made by rolling paper across the total array. After printing each design, the same set of dice are then tumbled and reset into a new composition for the next edition. Sometimes chance takes over and random rolls of the die can come into play, and other times elaborate patterns and structures are meticulously set in place. I like to consider things such as the tension of a field of sixes coming right up to a field of fives. I am fascinated by the idea of lattices working through and against another. I enjoy working with the common six-sided die because they are such a familiar object for most people. Viewers can be mesmerized and also totally at ease with them, vicariously handling the very elements used to create the artwork. Discussions around these prints often span from textile design down to subatomic notions, and into matters of order, chaos, and fate.