Heather Joi Baker is a self-taught oil painter from West Virginia now living in
Baltimore, Md.She considers herself to be a surreal abstract expressionist, a
visionary artist. She has a deep interest in astro and quantum physics and
Christian mysticism because, as a child, through play with nature, she discovered a
similarity in the patterns that exist both in the micro and the macrocosm.
She says, "I have to paint in order to see the parallel dimensions of fantastic
reality. The tools that I have to communicate these ideas and their implications are
dynamic and symbolic use of line (strings), form, color and gesture. When I set out
to paint or create a design, I empty myself, in a search to find an answer to a
question that I do not even understand. It is a hallucinogenic cloud gazing
experience where I feel that all I have are tools and the idea is passing through me
like a conduit." For her, the meaning of her paintings often comes long after the
act of painting. "When I think I understand what is happening, I end up projecting
my idea instead of allowing the original concept to form itself; the painting becomes
stiff and convoluted."As with nature, the organic process is always compositionally
and mathematically correct, so she strives to allow the intuitive flow of energy
dictate the next move. Her painting comes from either spontaneous, automatic or
subconscious creation that usually employs a combination of traditional and
experimental techniques or from concepts that take precedence over traditional
aesthetic and material concerns. She aspires to convey the paradoxically unifying
concepts in spirituality, art and science that can be understood through the
transformational and cyclical processes found through the pattern that connects
them together.
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