Nina Baker: Working Holiday

An exhibition of art and jewellery works by Nina Baker developed through a one year mentorship with esteemed artist Ruudt Peters in Amsterdam will be shown in Sydney YAY! If you missed it at Radiant Pavilion last year in Melbourne, come see the show now.

This exhibition has unfurled from a deep intuitive making process and is a dreamy reflection on a world wrapped in plastic and the power of the human hand to manipulate material in primal acts of creation and destruction.

Two major works form the crux of Working Holiday. The first is titled ‘277 Trials’, a 2m x 4m wall installation made up of 277 trial pieces. These are not mere maquettes but mysterious experiments. I worked under Peters’ guidance to expel rationality and to trust the hands above all else. These earnest expressions reveal moments of insight, excitement, inspiration, struggle, waywardness and finally clarity. This work illustrates the process behind its sister work – ‘ Bakjes.’

‘Bakjes’ is a series of jewellery and objects moulded from supermarket packaging ‘bakjes’ (Dutch for containers). Using sickly-sweet coloured plastic, I have cast impressions from these bakjes and attacked them spiritedly with crude carvings. The industrial forms become less anonymous, more solid and permanent. It is a dreamy reflection on a world wrapped in plastic, duality and the power of the human hand to manipulate material in primal acts of creation and destruction.

Opening Wednesday 31st January | 6–8pm.

Continues until Sunday 11th February.

Gallery open Tuesday–Saturday 11am–6pm | Sunday 11am–4pm.

About the Artist

Nina Baker is a contemporary jeweller from Sydney. Taking an intuitive approach to jewellery making, she rarely uses rulers or tools too exact by nature; but rather feels her way, working without knowing exactly what it is she's making until it exists before her. Nina's work reflects upon the urban habitat, plastic culture, rubbish, decaying buildings and other detritus. It imbues the concrete industrial world with the primal, instinctive and universal.

This exhibition opens alongside Nature's Apathetic Embrace by James McDonald.