Born 1985 in Lexington, Kentucky.
Natalie Baxter explores concepts of place-identity, nostalgic americana, and gender stereotypes through sculptures that playfully push controversial issues. Baxter uses traditionally feminine craft techniques to create cartoonishly soft objects, such as weapons and flags. Her colorful work holds up a fun-house mirror to ideas of aggression and masculinity.
Baxter received her MFA from the University of Kentucky in 2012 and a BA in Fine Art from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums internationally with recent shows at Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL), Spring/Break Art Show with Gloria’s (New York, NY), Institute 193 (Lexington, KY), Yale University (New Haven, CT), and Brandeis University (Waltham, MA). She has been an artist in residency at the Wassaic Project, a fellowship recipient at the Vermont Studio Center, and twice awarded the Queens Art Fund Grant.
If Natalie Baxter’s hexagon-tiled, bikini-baring, and yes, fringed, Housecoat III (2021), visible from the street like a window display, lures one in, Cynthia Carlson’s More Alarming Rumors (2021) will keep them hooked.
Many of the artists in Fringe explore ideas around gender stereotypes through the re-appropriation of traditionally “feminine craft” techniques, while many use the idea of camp as a conceptual framework.
A more intimate and entirely irresistible group show—cleverly titled “Fringe”—is on view at the Denny Dimin gallery through Aug. 20.
“Many artists in Denny Dimin Gallery’s program have been significantly influenced by the movement…I also wanted to explore how some artists have complicated the gender identities of craft and how artists of diverse backgrounds have brought other important histories into their work, enriching the dialogue around the ideas of P & D.”
