requested by The Future Tense for it's SPECTRA I exhibition, ‘Refractive Monolith’ is a three dimensional reaction to, or conversation with, Lee Baker’s latest paintings, which blend vivid hue and farthest perspectives to ‘build’ fantastical meta-cities against a stormy backdrop of ashen clouds and pending darkness.
Utilising roughly 10 thousand metres of acrylic yarn, Baker has used by the space with this enforcing architectural monolith, forcing its untrue perspective upon the viewer.
As with Baker’s paintings the happy colours give a comforting sense of security, while at the identical time the spectrum of laser-like yarn comprises the volatile infrastructure and relation flaw of structures. The gray walls serve to both enhance the colours whilst furthermore alluding to a threatening disaster.
Drawing on the narrative and picturesque components of Japanese films such as Osamu Tezuka’s 'Metropolis', Katsuhiro Otomo’s 'Akira' and farther discovering the concept of a self-aware 'thinking town' evolved in movies such as 'Tekkonkinkreet' and Makoto Shinkai’s 'A location Promised in our Early Years', Lee Baker’s art practice discovers the dichotomy between Japan’s fragile, elaborate heritage aesthetic and the relentless forces of urbanisation that progressively mark its landscape. Felix Grovit
