“Through emotional depiction, I create work that shares our global human likenesses. It was the passing of my father, which led me to integrate the topic of self relations and connectivity on account of profound anguish into my work. This series of figurative abstractions would be called “Feet in the Garden,” which references something unattainable – a never-ending vexatious search for deceased loved ones. The work abstracts images of faith. In doing so, I can engage with my audience’s experience in the struggles that come from deaths trials and tribulations. The pieces’ limited presentation of color suspends moments of familiarity in helplessness. In that which is left behind, in spaces vacated indefinitely, is a tumultuous yearn for direction. Astray in spiritual territories, these figures wander, reflecting our personal affair in the rivers current of trauma.
I continuously create this work not only for my search for my passed father but for the many who are experiencing their endeavors for lost loved ones.” — Case Baumgarten
This past Saturday we visited the ANFA Gallery to see the first exhibition of 2021, Gather at the River, featuring the figurative abstractions of emerging artist, Case Baumgarten. Before we viewed the show in it’s entirety, we had the chance to hear more about the artist himself, and we were touched when we found out that two of the pieces featured in the exhibition were created along side Case’s late father and artistic visionary, Lee Baumgarten. There is truly something about hearing the artist story that casts a completely different light on how you view an exhibition and we truly enjoyed seeing the first exhibition of the year at the ANFA.
Gather at the River will be on view at the ANFA through February 27th and if you’re in or near the Charlotte area I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.
One of the last collaborative works the artist created with his late father, Lee Baumgarten.
This is for you.
My father, my voice, my soul.
Smiling.
Smiling light in a shadowed tree.
A voice of the strum, I feel.
I see.
You.
Life.
Expressing green by your days.
Holding.
Breathing.
Twitched wrist resting.
Sliding far from our credence.
A traveler, traveling.
Awaiting our familiar forthcoming.
We will and we are.
This is for you.
My parallel.
Chasing parallels to reach,
Horizons bonded.
Grieving.
Graving.
Sleeping in the fire light.
This is for you my father.
My voice
My soul
This is for you, my train of lightnin’
Color of my spirit
Father of my being
This is for you
There is always a favorite piece in every art exhibition that we go to, and this piece titled ‘Black Hole Horizon’ was definitely our favorite. It’s one of those pieces that you can just stand back and look at for hours on end, and the second image shows some of the textures that can be seen throughout the piece.
The last sculpture Case worked on with his late father, Lee Baumgarten.
— About the Artist —
Case Baumgarten graduated with a BFA from the lauded Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C. in 2018, and is currently a professional, emerging artist working in Charlotte, NC. Demonstrating talent from a young age, Case is the son of the late artist/ sculptor/ teacher/ genius Lee Baumgarten, mentor to thousands of burgeoning minds over the decades before his unexpected passing in 2019. Carrying the torch of both his mother and father’s creative proclivities, Case is an accomplished artist in his own right, winning a sculpture award at his senior thesis show at Corcoran, exhibiting at KunstHaus Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as internationally in Cologne and Berlin, Germany.
Case’s current series presents the incessant search for lost loved ones. Through abstraction, figuration, and realism, the intention of each painting is to push the viewer to address all images of faith, with haunting emotional resonance for all those in search of loved ones lost. — Anne Neilson Fine Art
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