Liam Ross Baker

A Focus Pull

DG Online

25 October – 25 November 2024

Despard Gallery is pleased to share the latest exhibition as part of our DG Online platform, with a special release of new works by emerging Tasmanian artist Liam Ross Baker.  After being introduced into the gallery stable under our Young Bloods series in 2023, Baker has created six new works as part of this special online exhibition.

Already providing an original contribution to the contemporary art scene in Tasmania, Baker’s whimsical portraits examining the complex social anxieties that underpin our search for self-direction and sense of place. With this new suite of work, Baker turns his focus towards his immediate surroundings, combining the observed and imagined along with important people in his life. Contrasting thin glazes and washes with thick dabs of colour, Baker unearths a sense of the uncanny, where the familiar bends into a curious world of dry humour and the surreal.  Carrying a sombre expression, each figure appears incongruous with their environment, awkwardly poised against a fanciful backdrop, almost reminiscent of a kid’s playroom.  

Baker further emphasises the conflicted nature of his monochromatic subjects by satirically adorning them with party hats, flowers and face paint.  Carefully rendered, these dichotomies are more than just aesthetic embellishment, but become a metaphor for the arbitrary nature of navigating contemporary life.  Bakers approach also amplifies how the veneer of representation and the subjective nature of interpretation sits in a fragile equilibrium, emphasised by the translucency of his subjects, which appear on the verge of fading away. Overall, each work considers how personal experiences, including those closest to us, influence how we see and make sense of the world, including how we define our beliefs, sense of place and notion of self. 

Click here to register your interest for Liam Ross Baker.