miscellaneous #1
digital frottage / abstracts
The first pieces to appear in tonybakerartystuff were a set of abstract explorations that brought the technique of frottage, championed by the artist Max Ernst, into the realms of the digital, where hand-made graphite marks became areas of flat colour, that were to pave the way for subsequent projects such as the Childhood Series, Campaign and Homage to Homage to Catalonia.
The impetus for tonybakerartystuff, the blog that Baker set up in 2014 as a vehicle for presenting his digital printmaking, found it's origins in'1hr Art', a self-imposed project in which he set out to measure how much art he could produce in one hour - an exercise that resulted in a digital frottage, a short abstract video (including an edited still) and a set of five black & white photographs. Not being content with one hour, Baker decided to extend the timescale to one year, where he could conduct a longer-term survey, however, a year passed and, not long afterwards, he decided to give up counting all together.
As with his engagement with photographic technology, Baker used the digital design applications for his blog with a somewhat healthy disdain, eschewing the slick potential that they offered, in favour of using them to pamper to his, almost Luddite, printmaking sensibilities, where he continued to explore a range of styles and approaches through a set of themed series - many of which ran alongside each other. Intermixed with these were one-off ideas, short spontaneous series and photographic work. Aimed at presenting his art as it happened, the collection followed his varied aesthetic trajectories in a haphazard manner, where ideas would either remain as digital sketches or end up as a longer term project, where his idea would evolve into a clear and structured concept.
(Extract taken from the monograph, From Now Until Yesterday)
the childhood series
Made up of a series of childhood recollections, Baker produced a series of illustrations based on his written narratives that told stories of eating his first fresh peach whilst watching England win the 1966 World Cup Final, smoking his first cigarette and collecting Woodlice in a jam jar.
