Jamie Baldridge Statement Biography Paintings

Education

MFA/Photography 05/2005 Louisiana State University
BFA/Photography 05/2001 Louisiana State University

Professional

Assistant Professor of Fine Art University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Group Exhibitions     

PhotoEspana Descubrimientos Complejo El Aguila Madrid, Spain 2009
 Festivale Internationale Tattooed Walls (Dada Performance) Lafayette, LA 2009
 12 x 12 Gallery Lafayette Lafayette, LA 2008
 Millenia Fine Art, Time Warner Center NY, NY 2008 (October)
 Taylor Bercier Fine Art New Orleans, LA 2008 (Two Person Show)
 SOFA Chicago Chicago, IL 2008
 Richard Goodall Gallery Manchester, U.K. 2008
 Millenia Fine Art Orlando, Fl 2008
 Modernbook Gallery/Editions Palo Alto, CA 2008
 Forum 35 Shaw Center for the Arts Baton Rouge, LA 2008 (Invitational)
 Paul 'n' Lulu Hilliard Museum Lafayette, LA 2008
 Shaw Center for the Arts Baton Rouge, LA 2007
Taylor/Bercier Gallery New Orleans, LA September 2006
 Contemporarities Honolulu Museum of Contemporary Art Honolulu, HI April 2006
Contemporarities Art Auction Neiman Marcus Honolulu, HI April 2006
Spirit of Place Ogden Museum of Southern Art New Orleans, LA May 2005
 Rotations Bassetti Fine Art Photographs New Orleans, LA 2005
 Southeastern Louisiana University Faculty Exhibit Hammond, LA 2006
 ULL Faculty Exhibit University Art Museum Lafayette, LA 2005-2006
 Photo New York New York, NY October 2005
 Art Melt Brunner Gallery/Shaw Center for the Arts Baton Rouge, LA July 2005
 McNeese University Works on Paper McNeese State University
 Lake Charles, LA Juror: Annette DiMeo Carlozzi 2005
 CAA Exhibition The Loew Gallery Atlanta, GA February 2005
 New Work Bassetti Fine Art Photographs New Orleans, LA 2004
Art Melt Forum 35 Baton Rouge, LA 2004
 Art in the Dark Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA 2004
10 (Artists) Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA 2003
2003 National Juried Exhibition Long Beach Island Foundation
Of Arts and Sciences Long Beach, NY Juror: Edward Earle 2003
 Art in the Dark Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA May 2003
 Graduate Print Exhibition Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA May 2003
 The Bubblegum Machine Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA December 2002
 10 (Artists) Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA April 2001
 Vitamin D School of Art Gallery Foster Art Gallery Baton Rouge, LA March 2001

Solo Exhibitions
Gallery Utrecht Amsterdam, Netherlands 2009 (Upcoming)
Dystopia Camara Oscura Gallerie de arte Madrid, Spain 2009 (Upcoming)
Peregrines 'N' Pilgrims Richard Goodall Gallery Manchester, U.K. 2008
Informed Visions Millenia Fine Art Orlando, FL 2008
Taylor Bercier Fine Art New Orleans, LA 2007
School of Art Gallery Louisiana State University 2004
Marrazil/Inner Space Gallery Baton Rouge, LA 2004
Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA 2001
Oculus Gallery Baton Rouge, LA 2000

My love of stories goes all the way back to childhood when I discovered a book entitled 101 Fairy Tales in an old steamer trunk in my grandmother's attic. The pale blue cover was nibbled with flaking and tarnished gold leaf, and had on its cover a picture of a turbaned boy on a magic carpet. I sat in dusty, humid silence, amongst the jaundiced communion gowns and mildewed lettres d'amour, reading by the second hand light of the attic window, enchanted by the riotous jewel-like illustrations of the foxed and dog-eared book. I suppose I became an artist on that boring Saturday afternoon in that attic, and have sought ever since to evince in the viewer that same sense of wonder and adventure that I felt when looking in that book, albeit tempered by the lusts and losses of adulthood.

I think of the images I create, and the stories I write to accompany them, as my own interpretations of the fables and tales I have devoured throughout my life; from The Little Matchstick Girl to the Epic of Gilgamesh. The worlds I create are inhabited by the same archetypical characters that writers like Kierkegaard and Joseph Campbell have illuminated and have, for centuries, served to describe the human experience; all at once profane, tragi-comical, and erudite. My heroes and heroines go about their often futile tasks in analog of our own modern lives, mired in tedium and mendacity, symbolically mocking our own real world endeavors but acting with an enviable perseverance. Implicit in my work is an invitation to the viewer to experience nothing less than wonder, awe, or vaudevillian transcendence above the tedium of daily life. And it would be nice if they got a little bruised on the way.
The nature of my work, though primarily photographic, is heavily composed and manipulated digitally. I work with large format, medium format, and high resolution 35mm digital cameras, and using various software applications I composite my subjects into worlds that are almost purely synthetic, being composed of multiple photographs and digital renderings. The method of working in this way, of having art exist in ether of binary numbers, is complementary to the ephemeral nature of the images themselves. I find it almost enchanting that my work exists in a state of quivering potentia, swirling somewhere in a sparkling electric reservoir, waiting to be brought into the light of day.