artists

STEVE BAIBAK
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For Steve Baibak, making art is an interactive story between the things he grabs and the things that grab him. Drawn to the fresh, new, vivid, and strange, artist and object alike are an undefined mystery. For Baibak, that's pure West Coast style. While Baibak's joie de vivre is as playful as his artwork, his effect is, nevertheless, downright reflective. Skimming the surfaces of nature for texture, color, and shape, Baibak coaxes materials of life to present themselves anew. Mosses and lichens influence his perspective just as "the place where the smooth sky meets a rough dry grassy hillside" inspires form. But the joy isn't all Baibak's. To see Baibak's sculptures is an exercise in fancy. His stuffed works defy predictability by looking deceptively light when heavy or seeming heavy when light. Some even seem to grow and move right bfore your eyes -- recreating themselves at every turn of the head. To say the least, Baibak's art is West Coast art. It makes real the mythology of the wild, unsettled territory primed for exploration. It delights in the obscure and encourages the absurd. It's 21st century and time immemorial. It's simply Steve Baibak.

Reviews/Essays/Articles
Mary Catherine Cusack, Steve Baibak Blows His Inheritance on Scultures, 2008