Kristen Baker : Splitting Twilight

Kristen Baker
Splitting Twilight
Deitch Soho
The artist Kristen Baker was born in 1975 in Connecticut. She is based in NY. Her work is often described as a mixture of abstract expressionism, pop art, and minimalism. A lot of her interests revolve around motor sports because her father was an amateur racing driver. She is also involved in the sport.
Entering the Kristen Baker show my eyes were immediately overwhelmed and intimidated. I could not automatically adjust to what I was seeing. Were these paintings or posters? Were these huge canvases or paper behind glass? Were these large collages? Once I looked a little closer ,a lot of the mystery disappeared. I wonder if this is the fault of the work or the presentation in the gigantic gallery space in Soho. It is a larger than life space and very heavily and unnaturally lit.
I came up to the paintings and I realized I was not looking at paintings on canvas. The images were put together from many parts and I saw that the parts were somehow attached afterwards. There seem to be a lot of images that are painted over. Enlarged photos perhaps? When I read about the artist I was excited to see the wild and abstract expressionist elements in her work, which from afar were somewhat present but up close it began to look as if these images, like a collage were actually very carefully planned. Due to the large scale and careful planning, and layering, it seems like the paintings are more about the process of becoming what they are then the finished works. Kristen Baker uses tape to make the paintings first marks by using it to assemble the imagery together after she removes the tape she paints it in. It is interesting that there are two types of mark making happening but it still seems backwards and unintuitive. As if without all these steps,and minus the tape,an image just as interesting can be made and maybe even fresher.
For example,when I saw :
Kristin Baker, Bash Bish Rubicon, 2008 acrylic on PVC panel 3 panels - each @ 120 x 80 inches overall dims: 120 x 240 inches, 304.8 x 609.6 cm
I read that Baker is interested in landscape. I would have guessed she was a California artist inspired by surfing. The image is a landscape. It looks like a large collage of waves and a sunset. It is a huge painting on three panels but it seems too obvious. If it wasn't for her collage like method and for its overwhelming size it would be a mediocre collage of a sunset and water. It is hard to figure out what is so important to her about this subject matter. I tried to think about these paintings as made by someone who is interested in racing, in speed and adventure. I could get the sense of these things in some parts of her work but otherwise I think her ideas tend to get lost due to being so overworked.
I cannot help but feeling as if these paintings are too forced. As if the artist wants to labor away to ensure that these paintings will be cool and monumental.
It is interesting that the artist is using PVC and acrylic to make these very large paintings. PVC is so toxic that it is also called “Poison Plastic”. I find this to be an unlikely choice for a painter making landscapes. Whether she is using it to make a point or is unaware of its danger, I think the materials reputation is too strong to just be ignored. Her material should not be working against her. If her material of choice is not that important to her I still find it strange to use such a strongly debated material. The state of California is thinking of banning the use of PVC because of its effects on human and environmental health.
Like most exhibits at Deitch, these paintings are in fact cool , very large, and intimidating which makes me understand that this artist is working with a very large budget to make sure these paintings will be this way. I think that the people representing her are also making sure of this But I am no interested in big budgets when I look at paintings. I am interested in honest painters.
Overall I find these images to make a good first good impression but that impression falls apart as an illusion. These images bring to mind digital re-imaging. Although it seems like the artist is trying to bring something new to painting and trying to respond to the history of painting, it gets lost along the way.