Angela Baum


My paintings are abstract in the sense that they dont depict scenes, objects, people: they come from an emotional place - mood, vibrancy, clarity blurriness, all play a part.
I use acrylic paint, collage and mixed media. My work springs from ‘doing’ rather than having a fixed plan. I start a painting and then the painting tells me what it wants. The relationship between me and the painting continues until I think it’s finished. Or the painting thinks it’s finished!
I joined a writing class during Covid and this has brought new developments to my painting practice. I have also moved studios to a smaller space and I am making smaller works, many on paper, recycling paintings and reworking others.
I have been writing on my paintings. Automatic writing, exploring the possibilities that come from using text, handmade colour pastels, writing and over writing with additional paint and collage. Obfuscating and showing words, expressing raw emotion in language, layering meaning and playing with flatness and depth. Unexpected events turn up when painting in an intuitive way; exciting developments and new ways of working.
You can’t be a poet from the outside
Its the same for the painter.
Jackson Pollock moves his body,
a dance of silver paint and stick-marks,
other colours too seem to move
and dazzle across the canvas
stretched out on the floor
of his barn studio.
Why paint what you can see
when you can paint what you feel?
A dangerous game
some artists have not survived.
