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Size and Place Primary Drawings Plein Air Colour and Changes Conclusion Contents
Size and Place
Primary Drawings
Drawings prior to painting and during the process, can clear the way to paint. It asks questions and makes propositions as to the meaning or the experience of the work. Some drawings were to do with the light and others were about arranging significant parts i.e horizon land and angles. You can see arrows that show thoughts about proportions of land sea and sky. Often they were about essence and simplifying.
Plein Air
The place Climping is a wonder of light, sea and sky. It is full of changes. I have visited this place for over 40 years and so I knew it in my being and eyes, this was subject I choose to work with. Lucy and Charlie already owned a small oil of Climping. Selecting the exact spot along the coast was the start, it is where the December and January light placed an idea; sea, clouds and sky - a liminal portal between the elements which draws and invites. Once the heart idea convinces, then the work of deconstructing and placing can begin. After a while observing the late evening light I could see an idea start to form, which meant arranging the tonal values within the composition. For a piece like this I needed to work on site so there was a consistant connection to the space, observing the light and its spaces. As a result I had to construct a portable easel for the scale of work that also could navigate the stony beach and be resilient to wind and rain.
I showed the easel to Hugo a painting friend. “ That’s definitely taken the biscuit. Only a madman would conceive of it, but to build it… I can see the men in white coats approaching.” A passer by bemused by this contraption, stopped to look at Climping work and asked, “Is that on a ping pong table !” I spent many days pulling my portable tennis table, requisitioned to be an easel along Climping beach. Like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, I dragged and pushed this great easel into place only to return to the same spot a day later. To start and then right back to its beginning.
Colour and Changes
Conclusion The final stage of a painting is a kind of test, there are multiple possible manifestations of the feelings and ideas. Perfection is beyond your grasp; but it can be alive and vital with heart and unity of meaning - that is possible!
A commission at its heart is something collaborative, it requires trust and shared values. Yet it is also a business arrangement. For some clients it seems that a structure of progression is appropriate to put that in place, then signed off before starting. For Lucy and Charlie the element of respect and trust for the artist was paramount in their thinking and is I believe, more likely to manifests a work which is from the heart. And for that I am grateful to them.
Christopher Baker is one of the finest landscape painters of his generation and is magnificently equipped to tackle the changing drama of this land.Throughout a long career his love of subject has been matched by a relentless determination to discover a consistent quality of newness in his understanding of the natural environment. He is not a repeatist artist, indeed, there is a skill and freshness in the way he handles his subjects which is truly mesmeric. The paintings always work on two levels. They have a strong narrative and at the same time a powerful aesthetic appeal. It is a measure of his work that you do not need to look for clever phrases to respond to it. He articulates his vision so precisely his method of doing so is at one with his love of subject and profound spiritual engagement. His audience sense that his pictures are right. Here is honesty and truth. They have all stood on a mountain top or rocky headland with wind and spray in their face reveling in the joy of existence. Professor David Carpanini August 2016. Painter NEAC PPRE RWA Hon RWS RCA Hon RBSA University of Warwick A painting is not merely a record of a landscape, it is a record ofan experience of a landscape born of the union of artist and subject. It cannot be separated from its twin source. During the creative moment artist and subject are inextricably linked; both are mirrored in the painting. To view a painting as an object, as somehow separate from the artist, is to miss its power. For art is not only decorative, it is transformative. It changes those who gaze upon it and allow themselves to feel that dynamic that embraced both the artist and subject. When we gaze upon these paintings we see a vision born of the world of snow and ice ; and we enter into the very birth of this impulse. And that will allow us for this moment of true attention tobecome part of that extraordinary world. And feel something which we have never before encountered. Michael Baigent Author:The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail In some sense what Christopher has helped me to understand in my own approach to film-making, is to articulate these things that are hidden, what goes unsaid. How one fragment of British coastline can encompass both sublime transcendence and gentle melancholy in two separate paintings. In his use of colour you can see how by actually, as he says in the film, limiting the use of blue in ‘Looking east from Oliver’s Battery’, “the other colours become the blues, so that they exist in relationship to the other colours and take on a blueness”. It’s this subtlety and finding different ways to express the unsayable, which I respond to so strongly in Christopher Baker’s work. Joanna Hogg Writer-Director February 2011 Unrelated (2006), Archipelago (2009), Exhibition (2015) Reviews Flying Colours Solo Show Pallant house Solo Show Ultima Thule. Paintings from the Arctic.
Solo Shows 1981 Oundle School 1995 Edward James Foundation 1982 Brighton College 1994 Pallant House Gallery 1997 Portsmouth Museum of Art 1997 Pallant House Gallery, 1998 Fountain Fine Art, Llandeilo 1999, Pallant House Gallery Llyn y fan fach 1999 The Elmwood Gallery, Toronto 2005 Petworth House, Extreme Landscapes 2006 Zimmer Stewart Gallery, Arundel 2009 Moncrieff –Bray, Land, Sky, Water 2009 The Medici Gallery, London 2011 Flying Colours Gallery , Chelsea 2012 Medici Gallery Cork Street, London 2014 Moncrieff Bray ‘64 Days’. Medici Gallery Cork Street, London 2023 Osborne Studio Gallery - Midnight Sun. Gallery 1313 Toronto Group shows 1975 Royal West of England Academy, 1977–87 Royal Society of British Artists, 1980 Oundle School 1988 Wykeham Gallleries, Stockbridge 1989 Brighton Museum of Art 1988 Museum of Art, Oslo 1993 ART ’93,London 1996 RWS Bankside Galleries Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1997 Laing Exhibition-prize winner, 1997 Pallant House Gallery, 8ight by 8ight Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 1998 Fountain Fine Art, The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Georgian College, Canada. 2001 Other Gallery,The Banff Centre 2003 NEAC, New Grafton Gallery, Stephen Lacey Gallery, London 2000-3 Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta 2003 New Grafton Gallery, Steven Lacey Gallery, 2005 The Royal Academy,New English Arts Club 2007 The Royal Academy 2010 Royal College of Art. 2011-16 New English Arts Club Royal West of England Academy 2011, 2014 Pallant House Gallery 2013-16 The Mall Galleries, NEAC 2023 Toronto 2025 Rye Gallery ‘Landscape for the Terrified’ 2026 Rye Gallery The Art of British Print Making Publications Oils Masterclass -Dr Sally Bulgin, Publ. Collins Oil Painters Question and Answers Oil Painters Bible- Search Press Perspective for Artists The Encyclopedia of Water colour Technique - The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Technique- (Quarto) The Water colour Pocket Palette Articles 1987- 2004 The Artist, Artist an Illustrator Private Collections Tom Hiddleston (Actor) Sir Nicholas Soames Sir Donald Gosling Rose Hilton (artist) Professor David Carpanini David Jamison (Westerlands Stud). James Hamilton (Writer) Public Collections The Royal Mint London Number 1 London Bridge Leadenhall Building Edward James Foundation Oundle school Warwick University Magicorp, Toronto Dr A.Magara, Bern Neurology Clinic Residences 1980–2 Oundle School 1997 Georgian College, Canada. 2000 Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada 2001 NewWorks Residency Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada 2012 Graham Sutherland Landscape Museum St Davids. Awards and scholarships 1977 Royal Academy -David Murray Landscape Scholarship 1988 Laing National Exhibition, Mall, Prize Winner 1997 Expedition to the Arctic 2000 South East Arts Award, Canadian Arts Council 2002 British Arts Council Major Award, 2003 Expedition to Antarctica, Wolfers O’Neil Foundation. 2017 Arctic Circle Programme. Films 2010 Acting role in Archipelago Directed by Joanna Hogg. Artifcial Eye 2014 ‘64 Days’ Director Ed Rutherford Christopher Baker 2017 Midnight Sun www.christopherwbaker.com Art Education 1974-5 West Surrey College of Art & Design. Foundation 1975-8 Gloucestershire College of Art & Design Honours Degree in Fine Art Commendation History of Art 1980-1 Exeter University -Post Graduate Certificate in Art Education Public & Corporate Commissons 1987 No 1 London Bridge 1994 The Royal Mint, Chubb International 1995 Mill bank Tower, London 1995 National Car Parks 1996 Edward James Foundation 1998 Art Contact 2000 Magicorp, Toronto Museum Collections: Edward James Foundation University of Warwick
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