Visiting Artists Series: Rush Baker IV

(American, b. 1987, Washington, DC) embraces uncertainty in his painting practice, blending real and digital elements across diverse media. His method involves printing collaged images, layering them with plaster, concrete, paint, and resin to create textured works that reflect the urgency and chaos of the socio-political climate. Influenced by politics and Octavia Butler’s Afrofuturist novels, particularly Parable of the Sower, Baker's work explores the tension between destruction and reconstruction, using abstraction as a strategy to alter preconceived ideas.

Baker’s energy is conveyed through chaotic interwoven layers, revealing compositions that address the promise of tomorrow while confronting the flaws of the present. His works challenge boundaries and invite viewers to see beyond the immediate.

Baker has exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo shows at Future Gallery (Berlin), Scaramouche Gallery (New York City), HEMPHILL Artworks, and Honfleur Gallery (Washington, DC), among others. He holds a BFA from The Cooper Union, where he received the Jack Stewart Memorial Prize for Excellence in Painting, and an MFA from Yale University, where he was awarded the Elizabeth Canfield Hicks Award. In 2023, he was a Trawick Prize finalist and an Artsy Foundations Prize finalist in 2024.

Currently, Baker is a 2024/2025 Grant Wood Art Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in Art at the University of Iowa. Baker is also a lecturer in the MFA Program at American University’s Department of Art in Washington, DC. His works are included in the collections of The Studio Museum of Harlem, The Phillips Collection, and The International African American Museum.

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Rush Baker IV, All Quiet II, 2024. Acrylic, resin, paper, plaster on canvas 50 x 40 in.

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