My work focuses on the impossible dream of utopia and asks if a perfect life can include the feelings of failure, loneliness, and dissatisfaction. I create this space in my work: a lilting wedding quilt for an open marriage, an unfinishable cross-stitched rendering of the fractured Rosetta Stone, a closed labyrinth of empty benches. My multi-disciplinary and research-based studio practice uses works on paper and textiles in creating serial and narrative forms. This includes drawings of imagined utopian front gates inspired by suburban developments, illustrations for Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 100-year old novel Herland, meticulous drawings of wallpaper, fabric, or china patterns, and the imagined life of the last Shaker on Earth. While all utopias fail, I find both solace and value in the queerness of utopian dreaming. Drawing serves as a perfectly imperfect medium for this pursuit, welcoming flaws, drafts, and deviation.
Mara Baldwin received her MFA from the California College of the Arts (2010) and her BFA from Wesleyan University (2006). She currently lives and works in Ithaca, New York.
grayandgrey@gmail.com