NEVEN, London
H M Baker
H M Baker presents a solo booth of new work from a series in which she screenprints images from architecture, film and TV on acrylic wool carpet tiles from office interiors. The material and imagery explore power within structural narratives, the dynamics of corporate spaces, the architectural forms that inform and symbolise authority, professional order and collective movement, and the fantasies and aestheticisations of labour.
Baker’s piece for Art-O-Rama is a large checkerboard of printed carpet and aluminium tiles. Extending wall to floor, it evokes a scenographic backdrop, drawing on Baker’s previous work with dancers and her research into the inherently choreographic nature of the workplace, which operates through structured movements, rehearsed interactions, strict roles and power dynamics that dictate organisation. Architectural layouts, from open-plan desks to boardrooms, direct flows of movement, visibility, authority and collaboration in ways that resemble stage blocking. The booth turns into a kind of stage, touching on the ordered and controlled environment of the art fair itself.
On a nearby wall, a smaller work accompanies: a blue screenprint on aluminium framed in acrylic, with an image from Baker’s long-term project about a fictional character Maxine, a mid-level analyst working at an investment banking firm who navigates corporate performance whilst grappling with her feelings of complicity with an industry capitalising on the earth’s economic frailties.
