April Exhibit: Aaron Robert Baker

Chicago-based artist and curator Aaron Robert Baker creates beautiful emotionally resonant works inspired by everyday objects. His new solo exhibit, "Burn After Feeling," opens on Saturday, April 5 and features a beautiful collection of new works as well as a first-time peek into the artist's sketchbooks!

Works will be available to purchase first by members of our Gallery Previews email list. Sign up at previews.rotofugi.com

Join us April 5, 6-8pm, for the opening reception to meet Aaron and view the works in person while grooving to a live set by DJ Sean Doe!

Burn After Feeling
New Works by Aaron Robert Baker
April 5-27, 2025
Open 10am-6pm Daily

Opening Reception
Saturday, April 5, 6-8pm
Free, All Ages

Artist Statement

My work explores the symmetry between beauty and awkwardness, nature and artifice, happiness and despair, the pleasant and the pathetic. Transformation and anthropomorphization interest me, as does our ability to turn any combination of shapes into a reflection of ourselves and our own humanity. 

I enjoy whimsy and existential unease and like to depict a world where architectural forms and anthropomorphic objects express a human vulnerability. My characters lament, but also embrace, the fleeting nature of life.

In my drawings, structures liquefy, faces emerge from brick and mortar and candles take on expressions of agony, joy or contemplation. I use buildings, flames and organic forms to explore impermanence, identity and emotional expression. 

"Burn After Feeling" is a celebration of the role that drawing plays in my life. It has been my life-long companion, my safe space, my antagonist and my greatest strategy for making sense of, and ultimately finding the humor in, this world.

About the Artist

Aaron Robert Baker is a Chicago-based artist and independent curator. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Art in America, Hi-Fructose and New American Painters.

Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, Baker received his BFA from The University of North Texas and his MFA from The University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he studied under influential art critic Dave Hickey. When he was in the second grade, his teacher told his parents that he had drawn an impressive cheeseburger and that they should enroll him in art classes. Baker has been an artist ever since.