Dianne Baker

Dianne Baker has been exhibiting since l979 locally in galleries including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Castellani Art Museum, Burchfield- Penney Art Center, Art Dialogue Gallery, and Canisius College.  Nationally, she has exhibited in New York City, Washington, D. C., Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Denver, and Santa Fe. Internationally, she has exhibited in Hamilton, Ontario and Bratislava, Slovak Republic.  She sees treasure in debris and transforms the forgotten, discarded, and mundane into totemic sculpture and assemblages ( = 3 dimensional collages).  Thus, by portraying to the viewer this “second life” of recycled materials and found objects, they may be motivated to save our environment from such global consumerism.

I am drawn to what is overlooked, the transcendent in the forgotten, the discarded, and the mundane.  By reconfiguring these unexpected materials and objects into collages, assemblages, and sculptures, I attempt to subvert  the viewers’ perception and to value the past and its remains for they provide insight and connections to the present.  If the art reminds them of a grandparent, a work experience, a family holiday, they establish a connection and can then imagine the extraordinary in the debris from our materialized culture and abused environment.  Thus, I see my work as providing a transformational  experience in that the viewer cannot only see but also appreciate the creative possibilities which exist within the discarded  -- find the “magic in the ordinary”.