Richard Baker Painting

Between Presence and Absence

Between Presence and Absence is Leeds based artist Richard Baker’s first solo exhibition in a publicly funded gallery. The exhibition brings together a selection of paintings from an ongoing series Baker has been working on for over 10 years. In these unpeopled and modestly scaled works the representational absence of the human form is alluded to and made present by the hidden histories of the seemingly insignificant objects Baker chooses to depict. Often ignored, these objects bear witness to sensuous activity, be it remembered, lived, forgotten, or mythologised. The objects are presented dislocated, isolated, and appear as unadorned formal arrangements in a painterly staging of the interrelationship between object and time. Much of the meaning in Baker’s paintings comes from what is left unsaid, what is absent from the image but is faintly present, what is alluded to.

The exhibition is open to the public: 11am - 4pm, Wednesday - Saturday from 02/12/22 until 28/01/23, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Unit 7, Piazza Shopping Centre, Princess Alexandra Walk, Huddersfield, HD1 2RS