BEAUTY tony baker
Beauty has always been there, raising its head above the fissures of greed and destruction - often silent, its whispers scream and writhe as the deaf ears of compliance conspire to drown its words in an all-consuming blindness of fear and loathing. And in the dystopian landscape of the present day, where the prevailing ugliness of hate stokes the fires of anger, that, for years, have been left smouldering in the darkness of the collective psyche,it is all the more essential that beauty continues to permeate the patina of this tenuous existence, eschewing as it does, the slings and arrows of bigotry that have ingratiated themselves, like a cancer, to the language of rhetoric, whose echoes we hear all around us, slipping off the tip of everybody’s tongue- a bitter lexicon of words force-fed into the mouths of the populace by the manufacturers of opinion and the agents of hate,that has grown to become an insidious mantra pitching neighbour against neighbour, and friend against friend. For where there’s hate there is money, and where there’s money there’s greed, and in the sanctuary of the belly of the beast, hate is allowed to fester and grow, as its stench rises to the surface in a belch of ignorance and xenophobic malevolence, spewing out of the mouth of the giant behemoth. Yet, in the gloom, amidst the debris of our own doing, a glimmer breaks through the surface - a thin thread of salvation that connects us to a former world of hope and innocencea tentative reminder that without the dark, there would be no light, and without the abhorrent, there would be no beauty- for after all that’s said and done, beauty is still very much in residence. Invisible to the eyes of the many, and made mute by the hue and cry of the mob, it is the role of the artist to seek it out and present it to the world, to dress it in the finery of mark and gesture, and of colour and shade - and through casting the spotlight onto the details of our existence, on its warts and its pustules, on the ugly, the everyday and the mundane, the artist makes sense of the confusing and contradictory messages that have become our daily diet, and reassures us that even the grotesque is merely the shadow that enables us to fully appreciate the light. And although it is a given, that the juxtaposition of opposites creates the necessary friction that sparks each other’s flame, the coexistence of these two antagonists , is not, however, a marriage made in heaven, but one of constant conflict, where the resoluteness of beauty must remain steadfast in the face of its adversary, who remains insensitive to the damage caused by its lust for both self gratification, and the ultimate preservation of its perceived authority. And as the dream collapses, and the vile representatives of hatred crawl out of the floorboards of complacency, spreading their foul disease, and contaminating all in their path, it is left to the purveyors of beauty (the artists, the poets, the writers and the musicians) to pick up the pieces and carry the flag for truth , as they stick their fingers up to the towering Goliath of the establishment standing in their midst.
By defining their own notion of beauty, these champions of the sublime share their vision with those most susceptible to the unfaltering barrage of hard line polemic, and offer the raw power of original thought, in all its splendid diversity, as an alternative to the jingoistic arrogance of corporate doublespeak. (and) Unlike the systemic process of institution and authority, whereby the black and white of dogma creates a false security of simplistic doctrine (learnt by rote and recited in chant), the artist seeks to debunk all notions of a prescribed panacea, and instead, presents truth through the synergy of individual language and the nuance of its various tongues. In this respect, truth, and thereby beauty, is implicit in the vagaries of suggestion,where enlightenment can be discovered lingering in the spaces in between offering understanding without need of explanation - simply letting us join the dots to reach our own conclusion. At its most vital, beauty is the -nurtured by nature and crafted in our belly,it is the discarded lake of blossom collected around and the final kiss of destiny.
essence of life itself, created both by design and neglect by human hand, it is the air that we breathe and the food pizza box flattened under he feet of a passerby, and the the base of a tree, it is the promise of all eventualities
Meanwhile, in the temples of greed, where vanity knows no pain, the charlatans with their smoke and mirrors, hold the most heinous disregard for the sanctity of the very truth that they purport to defend. The libretto of their claims written in the pen of quill and feather, that has been scratched into the surface of fine vellum and adorned with colour and gold leaf, unashamedly declares it’s broken promise with the same assumed authority as the self-appointed doyens of taste who make their fortune through the supply of new clothes to an undiscerning clientele of emperors and courtiers - and where self-gratification takes a hold, there is little space left for truth - as a commodity, its value plummets, only to be replaced by a tapestry of lies and fabrication. But resistance is a resourceful creature, and unity its trusted friend,and as the jaws of hate and ignorance gnaw at the heart of existence, its voice can still be heard, defiantly bringing reason to an otherwise divisive presence. For the poetry of beauty speaks in tones of gentle resilience, the timbre of which can pacify the roaring storm that we see gathering at the foothills of our uncertainty. And with reason comes hope, and with hope comes the joy of possibility - whose promise knows no limit.
Continuing his preoccupation with the Post-Truth world, Beauty, which Baker started in 2018, is a prose-like visual essay that explores notions of beauty within the context of a perceived world of xenophobia, hatred, dogma, doctrine, and hard-line polemic. Produced in the form of a book, a mural and a collection of prints, Baker assumes the premise that beauty is everywhere, and that it is one of the roles of an artist to draw attention to its’ presence, in so doing, he seeks out the minutiae of our existence and juxtaposes these incidental details to create an assemblage of word and image aimed at revealing the ‘truth that lies beneath’ through its’ underlying counterargument to the prevailing culture of bigotry and intolerance - where contrary to its title, the series is more accurately concerned the ugliness of the world - the ultimate nemesis of beauty itself. Taken from the text that provides the commentary for the whole piece, it’s narrative is cut up to provide a title for each panel, page or print – imbedded into the surface, the words provide both an overarching structure for the set of 76 panoramic montages, whilst at the same time acting as a typographic counterpoint to the visual juxtaposition of image, colour and texture. The resulting images embellish the narrative with both the obvious and the obscure, where marks and images either merge as one or, alternatively appear in contrast to each other whilst occupying the same surface, thereby creating a palpable sense of aesthetic friction and visual dynamic. Whereas the mural and prints provide a linear presentation of the text, the book exploits its inherent interactivity to create a flexible narrative where the reader can actively manipulate the sequence of pages to create their own combination of word and image. Essentially modular, the concertina pages fold out to create an evolving panoramic vista that offers an alternative experience to simply reading from left to right.
photo by Jerry Hardman-Jones - Quarry Hill Campus, Leeds City College
Artists’ notes Beauty was always going to be a big project. Starting off as a book, it very quickly became immediately clear that it had the potential to explore a whole range of other avenues which, over an expanding time frame, turned into a set of one hundred panoramic prints. But then I had a seizure, followed by an operation to remove aggressive, incurable tumours from inside my brain, and the hundred prints reduced to 76-of which the final 26 were created post-tumour (quite how, I’ll never know, given that I am now a visually impaired disabled artist whose short-term memory struggles to extend beyond one second). And now, thanks to the support and creative vision of Kevin O’Hare and the Creative Arts Department at Leeds City College, a 17metre section of the full-size mural (ultimately 0.6 kilometres long) can now be experienced in its intended fully immersive context. The full collection of 76 prints, and accompanying audio, can be explored digitally at proposalbeauty.wixsite.com/beauty