Burning Out

LMAK Gallery is pleased to present Burning Out, Jimmy Baker’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Presenting eight new process-heavy paintings that combine the conventions of oil painting with digital collage, UV printing, and vinyl masking. The acidic color palettes and viscous surfaces create a vibratory space for imagery to dissolve into dense compositions that hint toward psychoactive experiences. Burning Out exposes the grit of a cultural fixation with pleasure.

The immediacy of gratification is cautiously surveyed in the reference and research behind these new paintings. As the Midwest has become a hotbed of opioid and heroin abuse, Baker is contrasting the validity of the lived experience with the virtual, and how this is reflected upon. Having witnessed a variety of effects, both first hand and at large, Baker visually investigates the reaches of this endemic. Mixing found photographs with personal photography; these image “clippings” and references are collapsed into an amoral picture plane within painting. The bright and blissful palette forms an overabundance of exuberance, yet it is built on a looming delirium of consequences. Baker views painting with a historically uncanny ability to translate anything into pleasure through formalization. He continues this tradition, while implicating himself and our compulsions in this moment.

Jimmy Baker works and lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he is an Associate Professor, and Head of Painting & Drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He has exhibited work in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Basel, Miami, Chicago, and Dallas to name a few. His work has been featured in many publications and has been included in private , as well as museum – and corporate collections like the collection of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Zabludowicz Art Trust London, Taschen Foundation Berlin, Cincinnati Art Museum, Columbus Museum of Art, Chase Bank Collection and Progressive Insurance Collection.