We are really pleased to host Liam Ross Baker's very first solo exhibition here at Boom.
 
Our gallery is dedicated to providing a starting point and platform for the very best, exciting and dynamic emerging visual artists. Liam has developed a solid, thoughtful and committed studio practice resulting in a mature, resolved and meaningful body of work. We believe Liam will have a long and significant career and will become a highly sought after and collectible Australian artist. 
 

Liam's works are beautifully painted, featuring some surreal scenes and strong narratives. We are especially excited to see the large scale works hanging in our main gallery space.

ARTIST STATEMENT
 

"The Bread, The Bird & The Baker began as an exploration of the human experience and quickly became a narrative of my own personal lived experiences, both present and past. At points in life one can find themselves as one or all, the bread, the bird or the baker, this body of work explores the search for balance, purpose and place that plays out under the weight of day-to-day life; through large scale portraits, narrative scenes and scenes of nature from my day job. They poke at broader social anxieties, but also those deeply personal that come and go as life takes and gives along the way
 

Through reflection of my life, I felt that I had personally lived predominantly as the bird, feeling that I was constantly seeking nourishment through accompaniment, alcohol, art, friends, social media etc. Through the making of the works dedicated to that element of self, and through observing the gulls, I found a new way to view those parts of not only myself, but others.
 

I have spent most of my life inthralled with the human experience. In this period of thinking I’ve focused in on the Australian way of masking sincere human struggle with humour, I felt as though I’d left that out of my painting, but it seems it’s followed me there too. The works are inherently absurd in their own way, but that seems to have come about as a result of that fact that most thoughts and aspects of life are just that, absurd."

BIO
 

Liam Ross Baker is an artist born in southern Lutruwita/Tasmania in 1998. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Tasmania in 2021, exhibiting in numerous group shows since. In 2021, Baker undertook a residency at the Henry Jones Art Hotel after taking out the packing room prize, as a finalist in the Henry Jones Art Prize. He was also selected as the people choice at the Tidal Art Award in 2023 and shown in multiple exhibitions at Despard Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania.

Baker's paintings are predominantly made using oils on canvas and board exploring figuration and narrative. He grew up in southern Tasmania in the small fishing town of Dover where he was surrounded by the beautiful natural scenery and landscapes, yet he took a shine for the endless tales and stories of lives lived in and around the town, and the industries that accompanied the local area. Through this love for the human experience, he found an intense interest in his direct life and surroundings, using his own experience to unpack and question culture, industry and people through narrative, symbology and most importantly figuration.