Banquet Years: Richard Baker Interviewed by Paul Maziar
For more than three decades, Richard Baker has been painting and reimagining the still-life form, lately focusing on books as objects-turned-portraits. Most recently, during the time of the pandemic and in preparation for a group exhibition at Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, Baker has painted a series of book covers in gouache as a means to embrace the comfort and pleasure of being at home. Like the poets I’m attuned to, Baker disrupts the familiar and its meaning through juxtaposition, surprising our expectations of image and form. His work evidences the fact that painting begins and ends in imagination.
