Meet Jill Baker

Jill Baker earned her M.F.A. at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in the field of Painting, while she lived in a loft in SoHo, in New York City, NY. She also studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and at Columbia University in New York. Her undergraduate degree, a B.A. in Fine Art, is from Baylor University. As a visual artist, she has exhibited worldwide in venues such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris (a juried show of representative American artists chosen by Henry Kissinger), the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (a one-person show), and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea (a one-person show). She has shown in galleries in most major cities in the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Nashville, and Louisville. Her work is in many private collections, universities, libraries, and museums. She has also illustrated numerous books. She has her own art studio, lives and exhibits often in Louisville, Kentucky.

Artist's Statement:

I began drawing at 2 years of age and was taken out of class in the first grade to attend advanced drawing classes. Years of painting have brought me not only to paint portraits, landscapes and the figure, but to paint surreal collages; begun when I took a course in painting from Bauhaus artist and collagist, Karl Zerbe at Florida State University. I also learned traditional painting styles using composition, contrast and color from early painting teachers at the Montalvo School in Saratoga, CA and from Silvio LoFredo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. At Baylor University, I learned Old Masters' techniques. During Graduate School at Pratt Institute, where I earned an M.F.A in Painting, I emphasized work in oils, but also created collages, though printmaking was important. During a summer residency in 2015, I studied classical painting under Iliya Mirochnik, Russian Classical Professor at Dacia Gallery in NYC.

I am not only noted for Realism and Impressionism in my paintings, but for Surreal collages, which incorporate surprising and fantastic conjunctions of every-day objects in original and unexpected juxtapositions.