Baker Overstreet Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1981 -

Baker Overstreet (born 1981) is an artist based in Brooklyn.

Overstreet was born in Augusta, Georgia. His paintings describe patterns, symbols, figures and fictional spaces.[1] His work makes reference to folk and primitive art.[2]


Influenced by tribal and folk art, Baker Overstreet envisions a primitive abstraction reflective of contemporary zeitgeist. In totemic compositions of bold colour and stylised patterning Overstreet develops his own painterly lexicon comprised of personal symbolism and gesture. Through their atavistic formalism, Overstreet’s symmetrical arrangements create deceptive pictorial fields: Rough scrawled lines and blocks of vibrant hue evoke fleeting suggestions of figurative or architectural form, creating moments of recognition only to be devoured by the urgency of the paintings’ surfaces.

He received his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University in 2006.
Selected exhibitions

2006

Escape From New York, Curators Without Borders, Berlin
Volta Art Fair, Basel, Switzerland
Smoke and Mirrors, China Art Objects, Los Angeles
Mary Pauline Gallery, Augusta

2007

Gimme a little Sign, Sister, Los Angeles, California
Fredericks & Freiser, The Armory Show, New York

2008

Unnamable Things, Artspace, New Haven, Connecticut

2009

Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis