My Story
My name is Whitney-Anne Baker and I am a collage and journal artist.
I am self taught and over many years have worked with textiles, handmade paper, artists's books, digital art and photography as well as creating and facilitating creative workshops for children and teenagers.
These days collage is my preferred medium. It's so immediately satisfying; one magazine, a pair of scissors and a glue stick and you've got something.
A box full of papers - packaging, photocopies, found text and magazines - is a box full of possibilities, new narratives waiting to be created . Working with my hands, sorting papers, cutting out images, soothes and quietens my soul and allows ideas to develop.
I use a variety of media often working directly into magazines adding paint and layering text and images. This allows me to be spontaneous and playful and stops the whole thing from becoming too precious ( it's only a magazine, right?) These altered magazines then become art journals where I can explore ideas, try out techniques or record my moods and are a vital part of my creative practise. Check out my instagram here to see a regular feed or follow me here.
Fashion magazines are my go to inspiration, having inherited a 3 foot stack of them when my daughter left home! And, yes, I do have permission to cut them up!
Collaging with fashion models is about creating a different feminine/feminist narrative for the images. One that encompasses a wider range of women's emotional life; bored by housework, feeling insecure, being triumphant, being shallow or digging deep into the feminine psyche, the good, the bad and the ugly because life is messy and not airbrushed.
