Middlesborough-born artist, Lauren Baker, credits her love of art to have started at a young age, through playing a childhood game she called ‘Collecting Treasure’. Her father worked in Ghana for a short period, meaning there was a large African cultural influence within her home. She loved the flamboyant fabrics and carefully carved sculptures, and displayed them alongside personal items she had found, positioning them in patterns and storing them in tiny boxes as her own, artistic treasure. However, Baker didn’t pursue art as a career until later, at age twenty-eight.
An ongoing theme within Baker’s art is spiritualism and exploring the expansiveness of the universe, human connection, and metaphysics. This is, in part, due to how she became an artist. After leaving a dead-end, corporate job, Baker decided to travel to South America, on a “quest for the meaning of life”. She joined a mosaic project in Brazil, took part in ceremonies with shamans in Peru and studies metaphysics in Guatemala. During this time, Baker “found that art is medicine and I found true happiness in creativity.”
Baker’s art now is exhibited internationally. She works in a multitude of mediums, from neon, typography pieces, to diamond-dust smothered canvases, Baker’s work is often built around omitting or reflecting light, and directly references the frequencies radiating from astronomical bodies. Her work is not only deeply meaningful, celestial, and insightful, but also breathtakingly beautiful.