Why I’m Excited #8: Bobby Baker
In a continuing series on the blog, we're going to be hearing about parts of the Lineup for 2010 that people are particularly looking forward to. (For all Why I'm Excited posts, click here.)
If there's something on the Greenbelt 2010 programme that you're particularly looking forward to, do email us a paragraph or two saying why, and we'll put it up here on the blog...
Here's Malcolm Doney, writer, editor and Anglican priest at Greenbelt's HQ, All Hallows On The Wall on the singular talents of Bobby Baker...
Performance artist Bobby Baker shares a particular characteristic with Greenbelt. There’s simply no-one else like her in the world. Her performances which – at one level – deal with very ordinary experiences like shopping, motherhood and home cooking, also explore the darkest recesses of the mind, the existence of God and the fierce reality of 21st century life. Witness one of her performances and you don’t know whether to laugh, cry or flinch. That’s because Bobby Baker’s art is always absolutely honest.
This quality of heart-baring, heart-breaking honesty is vividly present her Diary Drawings, which will be on show at Greenbelt this year. In 1996 Bobby was diagnosed as having a ‘borderline personality disorder’. And these watercolours, which she produced daily, chart the terrors, self-destructiveness and wonderful, wild humour of her experience of juggling art, faith and ‘madness’.
I’ve been tracking Bobby’s work for some years now – she’s a premier league contemporary artist – up there with Anthony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the like. It’s a real coup to have her at Greenbelt. This is a must see.
To hear Bobby talking about the exhibition, listen to the audio slideshow at the Guardian, or read an interview with her here. There's also a slideshow of images here, which document Bobby's venture into printmaking, one print of which will be given out at Greenbelt 2010.
