Form and Void

FORM AND VOID - BLAKE BAXTER
Joshua Tree Art Gallery Jan. 13 - Feb. 3, 2018

"Blake Baxter’s January show at JTAG, “Form and Void”, presents a series of sand-based paintings in which black and white are the only paint colors used. All other hues are natural to the primary media: different types of prepared sand. The surfaces of these paintings evidence gentle changes, influenced largely by available light - monochromatic with subtle depths-of-field that become more evident the longer one observes. Afforded sufficient time, these works become machines that generate focal awareness, allowing one the opportunity to explore the complex relationship between transient modes of existence (form) and the inevitable manifestation of nothingness (void)."

Blake Baxter is best known for large-scale, monochromatic paintings incorporating aggregates such as sand, coal slag, and diatomaceous earth. Blake was born in Los Angeles, and received his BA in Fine Art from UCSC. He has exhibited work in Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles, and was an exhibiting member of the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. He lives today in Joshua Tree, CA.

“These pieces are constructed with minimal materials: washed sand, acrylic paint, polymer, & varnish. I follow a repeatable process of sequenced steps that yields variation regardless of my efforts to minimize the same. This variety evidences a reliable pattern of change. The result is a communication of unstructured data, which, when met by perception, seeks to establish form. The values in the data, like the materials, are minimal: color, geometric composition, texture, reflectivity, size. Defining the relationship of these values requires some interpretative consideration. One might see a single piece recreated over and over, or individual pieces grouped by common values (whole field vs. broken field compositions, for example), or wholly unique objects defined by their relative distances from each other in time and space. As such, these are exercises in the interpretative power of consciousness; through mindful observation, one might be left to question the supposition that seeing is indeed believing.”