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| Featured: July 2007 | alan baker | |
| www.charmingbaker.com |
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Baker's work toes the wire between heroism and folly with arms outstretched, not caring to look down. His images fall onto the canvas (or drilled and blasted board) like feathers from a US bomber, shorn of context, riddled with humour:
In a flat-packed kitchen a hollow tiger leaps at a trembling rabbit; A horse in uniform stands to attention; a speedway rider sits astride a leaping bull, somewhere inside an IKEA catalogue.
Space is defined by the catalogue of images in the viewer's mind - there is nothing didactic here. And yet we know there is a story - a child points a gun that we think is a toy; a half-dressed model sits serenely oblivious to the shotgun pellets embedded in her backside - but we either can't quite believe or won't quite accept it.
Nonetheless, his recent show at the Truman Brewery was mobbed. And the mob walked off with half the pictures.
The charming Alan Baker's studio is in the Faircharm Building at the moment - before he retires (imminently) to an unmarked shed somewhere in South London.
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