Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Ann Baade.
Carrie Ann, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I am a narrative painter and storyteller who is actively changing the story of art – one student at a time. Growing up, I was told that painting was dead, art was dead, and I thought all the great artists who had ever existed had already been born and passed away. Today, I know that there are more amazing artists making art right now than have ever existed. Through the internet we are growing as artists and people, making connections, and developing our visual literacy. My students are the future, and they know that whatever art has meant in the past, they are the creative problem solvers who will be applying their craft, innovation, and vision to become makers and artists the likes of which we have never seen. The future belongs to Art.
This is why I am a teacher. I am a professor of Art at Florida State University.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I return to the haunting moments in art history in order to reclaim them, not merely as a quotation of a theme or an image, but to recapture the materiality of methods and techniques in which they were created.
I paint from collages cut and composed from the pages of Western European art history, so in a way, I work to preserve the past, and to write my name in the corner of a collective narrative – to write my name on body of work mostly made by men. I have learned that painting is always about painting and its history. In some ways, I am trying to bring the past back and keep it alive, and in other ways, I weave quotations of past work into a narrative that creates me. The material strategies necessary to deploy these paintings bring a contemporary voice to the past while contemplating the ageless issues of morality, politics, and the individual quest for self-expression.
Do you think conditions are generally improving for artists? What more can cities and communities do to improve conditions for artists?
First, separate what you think you know about the history of Art from it’s potential. Art is a level of intent. It is the harmony with materials, motor skills, thoughts, and emotions to transform objects, space, time, ourselves, and others. There is limitless untapped potential within Art.
Artists are sensitive, perceptive, synthesizers of experience. Artists may hold the key to transform a sick world into a healthy one. We may mourn our loss of resources or our rising population but what we have is the potential for human consciousness. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, what god manifested in nature, so is what humans create through Art. Our possibility for a future where humans are aligned with the planet and creating for betterment of all is through this shift of conscious awareness, and I believe art is capable of delivering that.
This is not merely painting or sculpture but applying the human gifts of creative innovation and problem-solving.
Maybe you a skeptic? Do you think art is bogus?
Close your eyes. Imagine the world without dance, without architecture, without music, without paintings, and cuisine, or literature. Art is what has been saving us every day. It is what has been saving us from the worst versions of ourselves.
Every human being is capable of this personal revolution.
Funding the arts at every phase of education is step one for this revolution to take place. Art, in some form, should be required for all to be healthy and harmonious members of society, When culture is thriving, our society is healthy and meaningful.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Exhibits for just this fall: Contemporary painter Carrie Ann Baade will hold solo exhibitions in Florida and Texas, and will present her work at group shows in Poland, France, New York City, and Seattle.
Take a look at my Fall 2018 Artist Newsletter: https://mailchi.
Carrie Ann Baade’s surreal meta-narratives detailing her depiction of the apocalyptic climate of the world are featured in a solo exhibit “The Foreshadowing of Events” at the Gadsden Art Museum in Quincy, Florida. Each painting explores themes of mortality and morality. Baade is a storyteller using narrative painting to comment on fears and introspections; the results are gothic, dark, and haunting. In her original approach, she employs collages made of images torn from the pages of art history books and repaints them into large, allegorical oil paintings. This exhibit opens Sept 28 – Dec 15, 2018. https://gadsdenarts.org/
“Gospel of Sophia” features the mystical and celestial side of Carrie Ann Baade’s works with angles and themes exploring apocryphal and Biblical subject matter. Through her art, she weaves religious and mythological narratives with her own autobiographical story to examine the past in a contemporary context. Carrie Ann honors the timeless, archetypal nature of our myths while altering the stories to keep them alive. Her work revolutionizes ideas of humanity, rejecting a rational vision of life in favor of one that asserts the value of the subconscious as she sees magic and strange beauty in the unexpected. These will be exhibited at the Jung Center in Houston November 2-28. The artist will be present for the Opening Reception November 2nd 5 to 7 pm.
Baade’s next solo exhibition opens in January of 2019 at the Mesa Contemporary Museum in Arizona. https://www.
Other international group exhibitions opening this fall featuring the works of Carrie Ann Baade:
October 06-20, Chimeria Bienalle, Festival International des Arts et des Sciences Visionaries in Sedan, France. In its https://www.chimeria.org/
Magical Dreams in which 37 outstanding artists’ works travel to 8 cultural centers in Austria, Poland, and Germany. Starting in 2017, Bator Gallery’s 4th international exhibition of magical realism concludes this fall. Baade is the only painter from the United States to exhibit with this group of renown European painters. http://www.magical-
Pen + Brush is pleased to present On Adornment, a group exhibition curated by Jenn Hampton, featuring emerging and mid-career artist who is unpacking the concept of adornment, in the context of female imaging and agency, and redefining it in contemporary ways. On exhibit from September 20 to October 27th, 2018. Pen + Brush, 29 East 22nd Street, New York, NY. Opening Reception is Thursday, September 20th, 6 to 8 pm. http://www.penandbrush.
Two Group exhibits at Kirkland Arts Center, September 18 to Nov 10th
Apparitions brings together an international selection of artists working around the idea of spirits. Taking a broad view of the subject, the exhibition will examine the role of spirits as manifestations of cultural and personal belief systems within the context of contemporary society and informed by traditional ideas of ghosts and the disembodied essence. Artists: Carrie Anne Baade, Troy Gua, Che Lopez, Mark Hurst, Jason Sobottka, Hanako O’Leary, Ruthie V, Justin Baldwin, Richard Sayer, and Kristen Ferrell. Curated by J Gordon. http://
Saturated with mythological symbolism and pagan imagery that evokes the historical idea of the witch as a contemporary feminist icon, Spellbound presents modern witchcraft as a spiritual practice freeing itself from the negative connotations inherited through centuries of persecution. The works presented in this exhibition re-appropriate and subvert imagery commonly associated with the witch as a way of directly addressing the means by which practitioners have been vilified. Our goal is to present a view of present-day paganism without diluting or commercializing the witch and her craft. Curatorated by Geneva Baldauf, Artists included are Carrie Ann Baade, Marlene Seven Bremner, Yuko Ishii, and Chris Sheridan. http://
Contact Info:
- Website: www.carrieannbaade.com
- Email: Carrieannbaade@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrieannbaade
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carrieannbaade
- Other: My fall 2018 newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/2d6bffe98d72/fall-2018-artist-newsletter
Image Credit:
Portrait of me…Mika Fowler.
Getting in touch: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
