Visual Language Magazine Contemporary Fine Art Vol 4 No 1

Malcom Genet, an art consultant in New Orleans,
writes that, “Andy Baird is the first artist to unite drip
technique with portrait painting. In the art world, we
call these post-Modern hybrids ‘original,’ in the sense
that they make painting new again. Andy Baird stretches
our imaginations by pairing two unlikely styles into
clearly innovative works.”
The traditions that inform my work are explained by
art consultant Michael J. Miller, who writes, in part:
“Andrew Baird has created a new and original hybrid
art form: the action-painted portrait. He combines the
unlikely duo of portraiture, which thrives on likenesses
and naturalness, with abstract expressionism, which
tries to avoid likenesses and subjects from nature.
Such originality and invention by mavericks creates
new areas of value in art. Baird is one such genius.
Surrealist painters in 1920’s Paris were first to fling
or drip paint, marveling at the ‘energy traces’ and lyrical
beauty of ‘accidental art.’ In the 1940s, American
painters expanded on Surrealist ideas and methods,
eliminating anything recognizable from their art, creating
the first American abstract expressionist works.
Jackson Pollock began non-traditional drip-painting,
composed on the floor on an un-stretched canvas,
radicalizing painting for the next half century or more.
Andrew Baird is in the direct line of the abstract-expressionists,
but one who reverses the order again,
by using this American avant-garde technique to paint
specific figures.
Another impetus for abstract expressionists was molecular/atomic
physics. Pop culture emerged around
‘atomic theory’, and Pollock’s flinging paint was splattering
lines of energy that reflected the orbits of electrons
around nuclei, which in turn echoed that of the
planets orbiting around the stars; this theme was often
expressed by the progressive artists of the day.
When Andrew Baird, one of the brightest contemporary
artists working in portraiture today, uses his abstract-expressionist
technique to compose the most
beautiful female faces, he reminds us that even the
prettiest face is a secret, minute world of whirling
particles, brought together in aesthetic perfection by
Great Mother Nature, and enhanced by the interpretation
of a uniquely talented artist.”
With input from and thanks to Malcom Genet, New
Orleans, and Michael J. Miller, San Francisco.
http://bairdstudios.com/
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