A young artist by the name of Marissa Olney recently sent me her take on Nick Baxter's current solo exhibition at Last Rites Gallery.  I found it to be incredibly well written and wanted to share it with the readers of Juxtapoz.com.  I hope you find it as informative and insightful as I did.  Nick Baxter's exhibition will be on view at Last Rites Gallery until February 27th.

-Andrew Michael Ford

The recent paintings of 29 year old Nick Baxter currently on exhibit at Last Rites Gallery in NYC are masterful in technique to say the least, teetering on the brink of obsessive compulsive, with each hair and drop of blood meticulously rendered with painstaking detail.

Each painting exactly the same size as the next, 12 " x 12 ", represents an extreme closeup of some segment of the human body in a mutilated or surreal condition.

Puzzle pieces carved out of flesh peel back to reveal a shimmering diamond shaped ruby glistening with blood in the pelvis of a woman. Tiny cubes of flesh surround the puzzle piece and push forward at a dizzying rate towards the viewer. This piece is titled 'Bring it to Life.'

The work uses symbols and metaphor in a visceral way, evoking a disturbing yet hauntingly beautiful reaction. This is achieved by the precise execution of detail and the hard to swallow subject matter presented to the viewer.

There is a certain stillness to the work where the body feels captured in a particular moment in time which satisfies a voyeuristic compulsion. The focus relies on an illustration of the human experience in a very extreme manifestation.

The paint itself is applied in thin glazes and photo realistically rendered. Each composition is centrally located, which allows the viewer a comfortable routine from piece to piece. This compositional device is odd considering the extremely confrontational subjects embedded within the work itself.

One wonders if Baxter is providing some solid ground for his audience to steady themselves on or is merely too enveloped in articulating every minutia to be concerned with other forms of composition.

-Marissa Olney