Debra Baxter

Massimo Audiello is pleased to present the first New York show of Debra Baxter. The exhibition will be on view Thursday, January 10 through Saturday, March 1, 2008. Opening reception is Thursday, January 10, from 6 - 8 pm.

Debra Baxter will exhibit sculptures as well as video and photography. Her work is based on the discovery of the self through the exploration of her own body, focusing on elements such as skin, organs, vocal cords, breath and various other gestures to the human form.

Such analysis is manifested in sculptures made of alabaster, a media she prefers for its transparency, evoking that of human skin. In alabaster, body parts are recreated and manipulated to represent not only their respective anatomical parts but also moods and metaphors possibly related.

This body of work, infused with wonder toward our own being, also addresses the intoxication of longing and desire. Baxter uses the body—refuge and container of our psychological beings—to reveal all the possible complexities and fragilities of being human. A playful yet painful landscape emerges in the work where beauty and pain and strength and weakness flirt with each other seductively.

The video Getting the Love Want (Practice) is a kind of live sculpture in which the breath of two people give life to a three dimensional object in a desperate desire to entrap and contain the mystery of love exchange.

The ballad of human dependency comes to life once again in Baxter's work, as she embeds the academic, classical media with the disturbing twists of a contemporary sensibility.

Debra Baxter received her MFA from Bard College in 2007. This is her first solo show in New York.

Debra Baxter