Press release

The Baldwin Gallery is pleased to present its seventh show with acclaimed New York artist Donald Baechler, “New Works” featuring a new series of powder coated steel sculptures and various works on paper. Known for his distinctive use of simple icons, Baechler’s layered compositions and lighthearted sculptures appeal to both casual audiences and contemplative viewers alike. Baechler’s subjects have included flowers, people, animals, machinery, architecture and cartoon imagery. With these elements Baechler examines our relationship to visual language as well as the cultural construction of representation. Throughout his prominent career, Baechler has remained committed to a universal, animated aesthetic with particular emphasis on quality of line, form and balance. His pieces typically include a central iconic image that interacts with assorted collaged and painted background elements to create a diverse compilation of icons, which Baechler uses to imply simple, childlike visual connections. The process of a composition is centrally important to the work, and he often revises the textured surface many times before a collage, sculpture or painting is finished. Donald Baechler was born in Hartford, Connecticut and studied at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, at Cooper Union, New York, and Staatliche Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste Staedelschule in Frankfurt. He has work in the collections of many prominent museums and has been shown in both the United States and abroad, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Kunsthalle Basel, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in San Marino, Italy, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg.

Also opening on February 17th at Baldwin Gallery is our first show with contemporary painter Shara Hughes. Hughes’s “Mind Bender” will showcase a comprehensive survey of semiabstract ‘physiological landscapes’. Hughes’s work pays homage to Early Modernism and the Fauvist works of Henri Matisse. With large loose and gestural brushstrokes Hughes renders snapshots of nature in a vivid kaleidoscopic palette. Hughes embraces intimate subjects and techniques to create something unique and personal. The works are otherworldly and transport the viewer to an exotic, vibrant and undisturbed environment. Shara Hughes was born in Atlanta, Georgia and received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was a New American Paintings’ cover artist in 2005 and in 2017 will feature in the Whitney Biennale. Hughes currently lives and works in Brooklyn and has exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Zurich.

Images are available upon request. Please call 970.920.9797 for further information.