Baker, a Detroit Public School and college award winning artist and former college athlete has created works of art for professional athletes in both the NBA and NFL, and this son of a “Giant”, (N.Y.) gives back daily as an art instructor in the Detroit School district which artistically educated him. Not only as an artist but as an art instructor he has had success, boasting students to artistically place and win in the cities annual “Angel’s Night Contest” in consecutive years.
As an artist, Baker prefers to paint large and has created murals in numerous venues and his art focuses on the education, history and beauty of people. Embedded within Baker’s works are contrapasto (torquing figures) and chiaroscuro (heavy shadowing), which compositionally give his pieces a distinct and dramatic effect.
Baker also has recently created two large murals, which both hang in the National headquarters of the Omega Psi Phi, Fraternity Incorporated. The first, the Life Colonel Charles Young West Point’s third Black Officer and the second of Brother John H. Williams, the national photographer of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, a friend and an icon over the past 60 years.
Baker, as a figurative artist, doesn’t believe in comically elongating the figure but painting the human figure in its frailest and sometimes most imperfect form. Understanding that the eyes are the window to the soul, he is artistically unafraid like many, to be original and paint the human face.
“ As an artist being true to one’s self is paramount, and most importantly knowing that how you paint, is really how you paint.”