Corporeal Topography (2017)
Artist Talk Featuring Emily Baker
Day: Wednesday, November 29
Time: 2:00-3:15
Location: South Hall 1431
About Emily Baker:Born 1989, Grass Valley, CA
Lives and works in Santa Barbara, CA
Emily Baker received her B.F.A. in Interior Design from California State University, Chico, and worked in the fabrication industry upon graduating in 2011. She recently received her M.F.A. from UC, Santa Barbara in June, 2016. Throughout her time in graduate school her research has been inspired by the need to channel raw muscle memory into an alternative format. Her work explores mark-making and human scale and seeks to document the visual space in-between start and stop. Using a variety of materials, she examines the ritualistic nature of sport and the necessary endurance that is called upon when executing passion through motion. She now is a lecturer at UCSB in The College of Creative Studies and the Art Department, and at Allan Hancock Collage in Santa Maria.
Spinal Shift (2017)
Artist Statement:I come from a world of ponytail-facelifts, wedgies, and glitter hairspray where chalk is the remedy for callouses ripped open, and athletic tape holds most of the team together. Gymnastics is synonymous with who I am. It’s how I stand out; it’s how I am remembered; it’s my identity. However, I am not able to continue with the sport that is my home; my aging body won’t allow it. So how do I re-home this athleticism? My artwork poses this question and distills the body motions that I hold so dear. It expands upon the start and stop of movements which I have done so repetitively for all of my life, and therefore it documents them. The work also examines the ritualistic nature of sport and the necessary endurance that is called upon when executing a passion through motion.
Risk Versus Thrill (2017) Images provided courtesy of Emily Baker.
