Aaron Baldwin: 2005

Friday, October 7, 2005

Essay: Aaron Baldwin

Head, 2005

Mahogany

65 x 65 x 65 in

AARON BALDWIN

By Wim Roefs

Aaron Baldwin is foremost a formalist. He is driven by aesthetics and the formal qualities of his surroundings. Those surroundings include coastal McClellanville, S.C., where he was born and lives. It includes tools, forests, fish, chickens and people, including Ted, David, Mose and other folks with whom he used to work in construction or architectural restoration.

That boat shapes appear frequently in Baldwin’s work is no surprise. Nor are the nails, wire or tools, including the open-ended wrench or the plaster knife doubling as human bodies in K4 and David In High Places. GI Joe’s head, sanded down to dull its features, is the model for the heads made from putty in Baldwin’s three-dimensional wall pieces. Hard Ted’s body is modeled after a turtle exclusion device, an underwater cage used to spare turtles while catching shrimp. Wood, in all shorts and shapes, pure or processed, is a staple of Baldwin’s art. “I look for shapes and materials close to home.”

Baldwin seldom depicts what’s close to home literally. The work reflects how he relates to his environment, both physically and mentally. Sometimes merely as a mental exercise, he puts together everyday elements in ways that change their purpose. The door hinge that gives Icarus a body and wings is conceptually related to Picasso’s handlebar-turned-bullhorns. Baldwin also reduces nature to its essential shapes in sculptures informed by the clean, understated stylings of Constantin Brancusi or Martin Puryear. Sculptures such as Dolphin and Fish Trap suggest, in Puryear fashion, a heaviness that, hollow as they are, isn’t there, even though they have gravitas.

In his Tower sculptures, Baldwin uses branches, twigs and scrap wood for construction and architectural purposes. In his Developend Landscape and Undeveloped Landscape series, Baldwin exercises his recent “compulsion to impose a sense of order on nature and daily life.” Those three-dimensional paintings, inspired in part by early Christian relief paintings, underscore that Baldwin is above all a sculptor. His two-dimensional Hand paintings in essence depict sculptures of hands.

“I like the formal part of my work to have a lot of value,” Baldwin says, “because then it doesn’t matter whether it means something.” Still, the painted hands are a tribute to “working with your hands.” A lot of his work deals with ego, Baldwin says, about people, including himself, taking themselves too seriously. The tiny heads on a seven-feet-plus support system in his Tower sculptures are somewhat absurd. A head as heavenly body or on top of a pyramid or tilted to suggest crucifixion are merely a spoof, not attempts at new age or religious communication. The same is true for a body pierced with nails, St. Sebastian-style.

“There’s nothing more deep behind it. I am making fun of myself and other people, for instance of our notion that we sacrifice so much. To me it’s sort of humorous. But it’s disturbing to some people, and I can see that. I gravitate toward Romantic art in art history, and some of that stuff can be sort of dark. But I don’t try to make my art dark. I enjoy life and generally am optimistic.”

Wim Roefs

Icarus, 2001

14 x 14 in

Mixed media and wood

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Brief Biography: Baldwin

Hand 3, 2002

Oil on panel

12 x 12 in

$450

Aaron Baldwin (b. 1963)

Aaron Baldwin was born in McClellanville, S.C. After receiving his MFA in painting at Clemson University in 1991 and living several years in Charlotte, N.C., he returned to his hometown. He teaches at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, S.C. In the late 1990s, as a carpenter, Baldwin worked in the 18th and 19th century woodworking techniques. He also applied modern methods toward the preservation and restoration of historical structures. In addition, Baldwin has built several houses in McClellanville, including his own, and calls himself a "compulsive boat builder." His artwork has been shown in galleries galleries in New York City, Atlanta, Charleston, S.C., Columbia, S.C., Greenville, S.C., and elsewhere. He has exhibited in the Greenville (S.C.) County Museum of Art, Charleston's Gibbes Museum, and the Chattahoochie Valley Art Museum in LaGrange, Ga. His work was selected for several Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto exhibitions in Charleston and for the 1992 South Carolina Triennial and is in the S.C. State Art Collection.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Aaron Baldwin & Mike Williams: Up From the Mud: October 7-19, 2005

If ART

International Fine Art Services

2300 Lee St.

Columbia, SC 29205

(803) 799-7170 / (803) 238-2351

wroefs@sc.rr.com

if ART

presents

UP FROM THE MUD:

AARON BALDWIN & MIKE WILLIAMS

Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

808 Lady St

Columbia, SC

October 7 – 19, 2005

Artists’ reception: Friday, Oct. 7, 5:00 ¬– 10:00 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Saturdays: 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Sundays: 1:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Weekdays: 3:30 – 7:00 p.m. & by appointment

If ART, International Fine Art Services, presents Up From The Mud, an exhibition of paintings, three-dimensional wall pieces and sculptures by Aaron Baldwin and Mike Williams. The exhibition is at Gallery 80808 at Vista Studios, 808 Lady St, Columbia, SC, October 7 – 19, 2005. The artists’ reception is Friday, October 7, 5:00 ¬– 10:00 p.m. Opening hours are Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.; Sundays, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m; and weekdays 3:30 – 7:00 p.m. or by appointment.

The artists will present a mixture of new work and older pieces not previously shown in the Columbia area. Baldwin’s work will include wooden sculptures and three-dimensional oil paintings on board with wooden relief elements. Williams will not just show the abstracted swamp and fish paintings he’s known for. Much of his contribution will consist of works on the margins of his artistic production, including metal wall assemblages, formalist metal sculptures, and even energetic, highly expressionist, painted portraits.

Both Baldwin and Williams are deeply influenced by the natural environment, the water and dirt of their childhood. Baldwin (b. 1966) was born and raised in coastal McClellanville, SC, with the ocean and marshes nearby. After some time away living in Clemson, SC., and Charlotte, NC, Baldwin in the 1990s moved back to his hometown. Williams (b. 1963) was born and raised in Sumter, SC, near the swamps and lakes of Sumter and Clarendon counties. He lives in Columbia, SC, and is still an avid outdoorsman.

Literal elements from the environment the artists hold dear are easily identifiable in their work. Baldwin, for instance, incorporates boat shapes or reduces bird forms to their abstracted essence. In Williams’s paintings and sculptures fish and fish forms play prominent roles.

Still, while their backgrounds and personal preferences inform their subject matter, both Baldwin and Williams more often lean toward sensibilities they associate with the environment they grew up and live in. The work is about how they personally relate to that environment, about the existential, even spiritual component of the physical world. Esthetically, that translates not into literal depictions but compositions with strong formal qualities, built from abstracted forms that can be traced back to nature.

“In that sense, Baldwin and Williams have a lot in common,” says Wim Roefs, if ART’s director. “They share a certain sensibility. At the same time, their work looks very different. Baldwin’s three-dimensional work, usually in wood, relates to the cool, reductive, understated stylings of Constantin Brancusi or, more recently, Martin Puryear. Williams, especially in his paintings, takes his cues more from Abstract Expressionism’s legacy, although his metal sculptures at times take austere, clean forms.”

If ART of Columbia, SC, represents artists, organizes art exhibitions, and provides curatorial services to galleries, museums, and other institutions. If ART also provides consultation services to fine art institutions, individual artists and art collectors. If ART was founded early in 2005 by Roefs, the company’s director and curator. Recent if ART exhibitions include “Janet Orselli – Matt Overend: Double O 80808,” in April, at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, Columbia, SC, and “Carl Blair: The Verner Award Celebration Exhibition,” April-May 2005 at Lewis & Clark Gallery, Columbia, SC.