UPRISE ART // Meet the Artist: Natalie Baxter Q&A →
BEDFORD + BOWERY // Here’s How to Do Bushwick Open Studios This Weekend →
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HYPERALLERGIC // Your Concise Guide to the 2016 Bushwick Open Studios →
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POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL // ‘Appetite for Destruction’ shows artists’ scope →
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this is NOT a safe space
this is NOT a safe space // June 16-July16, 2016
artists: Erin M. Riley, Justin Hager, Harif Guzman, Colm Dilane, Natalie Baxter, Terry Mack, Shay Shemple, Vernon O'Meally, Malik Roberts, Jesse Edwards, Anna Jensen, Joshua Michael Paulin, Phillip T. Annad, James Kerr, Melvin Guzman, Bryan Ellingson
WE GAVE OUR BEST...NOW THE REST IS UP TO THE HOPE CHEST
Im Ersten in Vienna // June 16-24 2016
NY artists include: Natalie Baxter, Maria Britton, April Childers, Heather Garland, Rachael Gorchov, Angela Hoener, Robin Kang, Andrea McGinty, Eileen Mueller, Heidi Norton, Aiden Simon, Corkey Sinks, Jamie Steele
VICE The Creators Project // A Plush Handgun Takes Aim at George Zimmerman's Evil Auction →
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Vice's The Creators Project wrote a piece about the Warm Gun I put up for auction on eBay. Racist McShootface, is modeled after the weapon that George Zimmerman used to murder Trayvon Martin and put up for auction, calling it "a piece of American history."
WFPL // Meet The Artist Making Hand-Sewn Replicas of George Zimmerman's Gun →
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Warm Gun on JuliaD.
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HYPERALLERGIC // Pillowy Gun Sculptures Take Aim at US’ Culture of Violence →
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written by Ashlie Danielle Stevens
ALABAMA CHANIN: Q&A with Institute 193 + Natalie Baxter →
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Q&A with Institute 193 Gallery Director, Cat Wentworth and Natalie Baxter about her Warm Gun project up on Alamaba Chanin Journal.
AEQAI // Weapons of Mass Construction →
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VICE's The Creators Project // Meet the Artist Quilting Flaccid Pink AK-47s →
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SOLO SHOW @ INSTITUTE 193
Natalie Baxter: OK-47
INSTITUTE 193 // 193 North Limestone Street Lexington, KY 40507 // 270.991.2906 cat@institute193.org
Exhibition: March 2 – April 23, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 12, 2016, 6:00 – 8:00 PM // Closing Reception: Saturday, April 16, 2016, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Floods of recent media coverage have turned the public’s attention to increasingly common mass shootings and conversation to the politics of gun control. Feeling powerless to act within these cycles of destructive outbursts and stagnant Congressional proceedings, Natalie Baxter found an outlet in making her own guns.
OK-47 is a series of sewn and stuffed sculptures, many of which are modeled after actual weapons used in recent US mass shootings. With fabric from New York City’s Garment District or her roommate’s Goodwill pile, Baxter turns images of these violent weapons into soft and brightly colored caricatures. Though she now lives in Brooklyn, New York, Baxter grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, a place that introduced her both to gun culture and to sewing. One of her gun-owning acquaintances, her Appalachian grandmother, taught her to quilt when she was young.
Firearms are traditionally viewed as objects of power and masculinity, but Baxter is unsettling this image by using a historically feminine craft technique to create non-threatening, non-functioning, and (frankly) flaccid translations. Her guns are more than plush toys, since treating them as such and thrusting them into the hands of children would only serve to familiarize and endear the image of a dangerous weapon. Baxter hopes that the works will act not as a statement for or against guns, but rather as catalysts for open-ended discussions about violence, gender, and ways in which humans relate to one another.
About the Artist:
Natalie Baxter (b. 1985, Kentucky) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Baxter received her BA from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN in 2007 and her MFA from the University of Kentucky in 2012. Through video, photography and sculpture, her work deals with issues of home and place identity.
QUOTIDIAN: Textile Art Exhibition
Opening Reception March 4, 2016 from 6-8:30pm (exhibit runs from March 4-31)
Gallery Show at Breadbox Artist Studios
501 West Sixth Street Suites 180, 185, Lexington, KY 40508
The artists in this exhibition eloquently straddle the boundaries between applied and fine art through their application of textiles. Fiber speaks to the ritual of everyday whether through attire, domesticity, comfort or the sheer method of construction. The works included use fiber as a platform for conceptual expression as well as a surface for material exploration.
Participating Artists: Natalie Baxter, Stacey Chinn, Erin Eldred, Aurora Parrish, Colleen Merrill, Ellen Molle and Cathy Vigor
BUSTLE // This Female Artist is Turning Guns Into Hand-Stitched Pillows →
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GREENPOINT GALLERY // People's Choice Show
Come check out a few of my guns at Greenpoint Gallery's People's Choice Show where tons of artists will be presenting their work salon style. Everyone who attends gets to vote on their favorite artists and the winner gets some cash monies and a solo show. So come on out and vote for ma guns! (unless there is something more badass, then vote for that thing!)
GREENPOINT GALLERY // 390 Mcguinness Blvd, Brooklyn, New York 11222
Friday October 16, 2015 at 8 PM
GUN SHOW AT WILD GOOSE FARM
Having run out of space in Brooklyn, I asked my friends with a place in Connecticut if I could store my guns in their barn. They then suggested I hang them up and invite some folks over for a GUN SHOW. So, we did and it was oh so much fun! If you're in or around Kent, CT, and want to check out the show, e-mail me at baxter.natalie@gmail.com.
All photos taken by Joshua Simpson Photography.
UK SA/VS ALUMNI SHOW
TUESDAY, SEPT. 8, from 5 - 9PM
236 Bolivar Street, Lexington, KY
Go check out the University of Kentucky's new School of Art and Visual Studies building for an exhibition of work from alumn and keep your eyes peeled for my gun, "The J Steele" on display.
