Su Baker 'New Works on Paper'

Renowned contemporary artist Su Baker presents her latest body of work in an upcoming exhibition, marking a significant departure from her previous thematic explorations. Known for her cultural analysis of imagery and complex critiques of representation, Baker’s new work reveals a deep and contemplative shift towards the elemental forces of nature. This latest series, created in her newly established rural studio, embodies a profound reimagining of artistic control, inviting the unpredictable dynamics of nature itself to play a determining role in the creative process.

In a bold step away from her prior focus on cultural narratives, Baker’s new paintings digress from structured critique and embrace a more organic, process-driven methodology. Rooted in the fluidity of natural systems, her work allows the forces of gravity, evaporation, and the intrinsic behaviour of paint to take centre stage. By relinquishing the artist’s hand in favour of nature’s own flows, these new pieces challenge traditional notions of authorship and intentionality in art.

“Moving to the country has reoriented my thinking,” says Baker of her current direction. “I’ve become fascinated with what happens when I step back and let nature take its course on the canvas. The drying times of paint, the way pigments separate and blend, the randomness of how materials interact – these processes have become the focus of this work. It’s some distance from the tightly controlled images I used to create.”

Each painting in this series is an exploration of how time and natural forces alter the material surface, creating textures and forms that resist direct manipulation. Paint is allowed to pool, crack, evaporate, and settle in unpredictable ways, creating compositions that feel both spontaneous and inevitable. The resulting works are meditative and subtly dynamic, with the viewer becoming a witness to the physical processes that shaped them.

This collection represents a new phase in Baker’s artistic evolution, one that reflects both the quietude of her rural surroundings and a growing interest in ecological rhythms and flows. While previous work often confronted the social world with pointed critique, these pieces gesture towards the timeless, the elemental, and the unknowable forces that shape our environment.

The exhibition invites audiences to consider the relationship between control and chaos, artistry and accident, and to reflect on the beauty found in the unplanned and the unrepeatable.

This exhibition is a unique opportunity to witness the evolution of Su Baker’s work and experience her fresh take on the role of the artist in relation to the natural world. Be sure to visit [Insert Gallery Name] to see how one of today’s most compelling artists is rethinking the creative process through the lens of nature’s own dynamics.