While respecting the historical role of the female nude as object or allegorical figure, I explore new resonances of this subject matter by mixing disparate elements such as formal drawing and painting with kitsch themes. My aim is to create tension between traditional renderings of the female nude and the playful tropes of burlesque. In mismatching these elements, I create a strongly re-visionist dynamic while complicating a sense of realism/humanism with a playful element of absurdity.

Bio

Born in 1975, Jennifer Baker was raised in the never-ending strip mall known as Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Her earliest dabblings with the female nude began with grade-school doodles of highly exaggerated “Playboy Bunnies”. This interest progressed in her teen years, when she and her female friends formed groups in which they would model for one another, au naturel, and make valiant efforts to copy the work of Jean Dominique Ingres. After attending Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Miss Baker went on to put her money where her mouth was and spent upwards of three years as a full time artists model for prominent art schools, art centers and private artists in and around Philadelphia. It was during this time that her passion for representational figure painting intensified, aided by working closely with the professors at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the figure painter, Martha Mayer Erlebacher. Upon completion of her career as an artists model, Miss Baker settled into a full-time position at Moore College of Art and Design. It was there that she continued her education through anatomy and figural illustration classes, supervised her beloved staff of artists models and designed course curriculum for/instructed Applied Introduction to Dada and Surrealism. Miss Baker currently works and resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she enjoys the quieter aspects of life, day-dreaming about French bulldogs and Chihuahuas and, of course, a good meal and a stiff cocktail.