Drawing on both Abstract Expressionism and figurative painting, Lily Alice Baker’s (b.1998) work explores her own identity in a world catered to masculinity. Naturally inclined to push herself outside her boundaries, Baker navigates spaces that are not traditionally a safe haven for female and queer people and, with a keen eye for body language, renders the revealing ways in which gender is performed. Figures in the midst of vulnerability or machismo are recalled by their most telling characteristic— a slumped shoulder, a raised brow— and then blended together with bold painterly gestures that defy the hermetically sealed notion of the female body. The glowing anthropomorphic figures that emerge from Baker’s seedy dreamscapes hint at the possibility of a public arena where fluid notions of gender might thrive. 

Baker received her Foundation Diploma in Fine Art at Sussex Coast College, Hastings, UK (2018), and subsequently received her BA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University, London, UK (2021). She has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions at COL Gallery, San Francisco, CA (2023); Young Soy Gallery, Zurich, CH (2023); NARANJO 141 (with Bayo Alvaro), Mexico City, MX (2023); Flatland Projects, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK (2022); and The Bottle Factory, Peckham, UK (2022). Baker currently lives and works in Marseille, FR. 

Download Artist’s CV