Lauren Baker: Glacial Uprooting of a Cotton Candy Dream

Lauren Elaine Baker

Artist Statement

“Glacial Uprooting of a Cotton Candy Dream” 

Confetti Blanket

Drops from the Sky

Gumball River

Sounds like Marbles

When they waterfall

These mountains look like

Big pieces of broccoli 

Glacial Under pocks of

Sparkling poppies

Dropping their gem

Wearing moon boots

With jet pack wings

Dancing, swaying, flowing

Morphing my body to the sound

Becoming as blue

As the smooth sky

On the hot day

I could see the waves

Levitating on the blacktop 

Uprooting 

The cotton candy dream

Existing in the space between familiarity and fantasy, the organic and the contrived, “Glacial Uprooting of a Cotton Candy Dream” focuses on ideas of the simulacra. When peeking into a microscope, dendrites become tree roots, osseous tissue become cave formations, and zygotes become astronomical orbs. Visual similarities, linking the human body to growth structures in nature are studied in a quest to understand the intangible universe beyond the self. Rooted in playful imagination and contradiction, “Glacial Uprooting of a Cotton Candy Dream” strategically deviates from mere imitation. Recycled and highly synthetic materials falsify the natural, posing larger questions about the reciprocal relationship between human beings and the environment to which we inhabit. 

Lauren Baker received her BFA in Sculpture from Kent State University and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.