Rushern Baker, 54 Massachusetts, Unique Variation VI, 2020

Rushern Baker IV (b.1987) is a Baltimore-based painter and teacher with representation by the Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington D.C. Baker received his BFA at Cooper Union in 2009 and his MFA in painting and printmaking at Yale in 2012. He has exhibited in group and solo shows at galleries across the world including The Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington D.C, Zidoun Bossuyt Gallery in Luxembourg, and Scaramouche Gallery, in New York City.

Baker’s abstract paintings billow with themes of military destruction, dense architectural elements, and tumbling dilapidated ruins of the Greco-Roman world. Fragments of soldiers with flags mingle in an atmospheric array of colors and shapes to create objective narratives about war, history, and culture. His choice of materials varies as he uses acrylic paint, resin, paper, ink, aluminum, concrete, and ceramic tile adhesive to construct his galvanic paintings.

54th Massachusetts, Unique Variation III and 54th Massachusetts, Unique Variation VI are part of the series “Manchurian Politics,” which reflects on the nation’s current political unrest and the resurgence of racism in this country and around the world. Inspired by an 1890 painting of the 54th Massachusetts, the first African American infantry regiment in the colonies, Baker's paintings symbolize the struggle for equality Black Americans are calling for today. Using graphic figuration and Civil War historical motifs, Baker draws uncanny parallels to the struggles for liberties of the Black Americans of today with those of the freedoms the 54th Massachusetts regiment fought for in 1863.

Stamp Gallery, 2021