David Baker FRSASA is a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts where he was president from 2018 to 2024. David is an Adelaide-based artist and photographer. In his art he works with watercolours and acrylics. His practice is experimental and innovative - manipulating mediums in unique ways to create artwork that tells a story.
David seeks out lines, shadow, reflection, repetition and disturbance or disruption in his photography. First capturing the context then cropping for a minimalist representation. In post he crops more for composition and sometimes amplifies colours to take the design to another place - creating more energy than was originally present and so a new story emerges.
When painting, David uses a variety of materials, from house-paint rollers and brushes, to bricking and tiling trowels. He is influenced by a strong urban and industrial aesthetic and creates his work while listening to music, adapting colour and shape to the sound. In his dynamic and experimental practice, he reveals a tension between the representation of the organic and inorganic.
In photography, David uses light and shadow and close cropping, he exposes the energy of the subject– urban chaos, carefree beach; lazy sight-seers; mystical nature, furious water, fragile nature while leaving something to be worked out by the viewer.
“For me, the work must have energy and contradiction – disruption, repetition, schism, thrust, danger, a radical which gives life and energy and a twist.”
For David, the creation is the beginning. Telling the stories and listening to how others see the work is an engagement that completes the experience.