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Studio Documents

Résumé, Reviews, Interviews, & Observations from the Studio


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David Bailin

Bailin Studio CV

Emma Bailin, David Bailin Brain • 2017 • MRI images
David Bailin is an artist working primarily in drawing.
He received his MA from Hunter College in New York and his BFA at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has received fellowship awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the NEA / Mid-American Arts Alliance as well as the Arkansas Art Council. Bailin was given a solo exhibition in 2000 at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock and at the Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 2009. His work has been acquired by a number of public institutions including the Arkansas Art Center Foundation Collection in Little Rock, and the National Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. Bailin has received critical reviews in ARTnews, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, the Oxford American Magazine, Art Ltd and other periodicals, and was the subject of a 2008 documentary entitled “Charcoal Lines.” His work is included in the fourth edition of Drawing Essentials by Deborah Rockman, published in 2020 by the Oxford University Press. The 2020 Drawing Discourse 11th Annual exhibition includes two drawings from Bailin’s Erasing series. He was selected by the Arkansas Times weekly as one of Arkansas’ Visionaries in 2014. In 2014 he participated in the 56th Annual Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Art Center and received the prestigious Grand Award.
Bailin is represented by Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Seattle, WA (formerly Los Angeles, 1982 - 2015), and M2 Gallery, Little Rock, AR. David Bailin currently lives and works in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
  • The drawings in [this series] are ephemeral and dreamlike, […] and the figures and settings emerge out of Bailin’s marks—marks of abstraction, gesture, texture, and motion—as if surfacing within one’s consciousness out of white noise. […] His works skirt the edge of abstraction... Christopher Michno
  • From his early Holocaust drawings, in which he superimposed symbols of the Kabbalah over scenes of outrage, to his series of Biblical scenes set in the midcentury, to today's erasings, works that reference the loss of memory and personality, Bailin's narratives offer us a way to think about the human condition. We can be cruel, we can be banal, and eventually we aren't anymore. Leslie Peacock
  • Drawn in charcoal (and coffee!) on large sheets of paper, Bailin’s rough-hewn but beautifully detailed pictures present us with men in crisis–that is, men who seem to have grasped that their crises have overcome them and require resistance or escape. Peter Frank
  • In his efforts to accrete images from constituent parts, Bailin adopts a multiplicity of implements, yielding various textures and marks. His works skirt the edge of abstraction and approach drawing as text, and as theater, rich in surface and movement. Christopher Michno
  • Bailin's drawings…remain complex and not easily deciphered…the new context he provides for these psychologically-charged fragments, […] reflects one of the major problems of modern life—the anxieties that arise from the stream of highly-charged emotional situations that arise daily, the desire for the simple life, and the complexity of the questions that arise when one is finally alone. Ruth Pasquine
  • Bailin approaches each blank page as if a theatrical space to be occupied, activated. Each sheet becomes the site of a performance—Bailin’s own gestural charcoal dance and his character’s parallel search for a place, a form, a moment of reprieve. Leah Ollman

In the Press

Reviews, Criticism & Spotlights 2010-2019

Click on links to see individual reviews

The written material presented on this site is the intellectual property of the respective authors/publications

In Publications


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2008 – 2018

Creative Practices for Visual Artists

Time, Space, Process

Kenneth Steinbach

Artist and educator Kenneth Steinbach addresses key issues such as: the role of embodied research and non-objective experimentation; reframing one's approach to studio time; forms of productive conflict; the positive role of anxiety; and the importance of failure for the artist. The book will be useful to students and emerging artists, the instructors that teach them, and established artists looking to develop stronger studio habits.
Focal Press • 2018

Read the selection

Inside The Studios Of Six Arkansas Artists

True To Form

Johnny C. Sain

Arkansas Life • May 2017

the Arkansas Life Article

AETN Loupe

with David Bailin

Hop Litzwire

Filmed, edited and produced by Hop Litzwire
© 2013 AETN

Click on ▶ to view video.

The 22 Magazine Interview

David Bailin

Cat Gilbert

The 22 Magazine Vol 2/II Sign & Symbol
January 2012

the 22Mag Interview

Charcoal Lines

Interview with David Bailin

Cindy Momchilov, interviewer

Edited and produced by Doubletroublets Productions
© 2008 DoubleTroublets Productions

Click on ▶ to view video.

Writings on Robert Ashley

1983, 1985

David Bailin

Back in 1984 I completed my master's thesis Robert Ashley's Atalanta (Acts of God): The Architecture of Perception. I spent many hours interviewing Robert Ashley and was saddened by his death on March 3, 2014. I decided to post several articles I wrote on his opera for television as a memorial to his work and his music.

the writings on R Ashley

Exhibition Catalogs


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2000 – 2009

21st Century Abstraction:
From Roots to Celebration of the New, 2019

Essay by Peter Frank

21st Century Abstraction • 2019
Ledbetter, Ellis, Connally, Bailin, Peter, Liu
Essay by Peter Frank



Selected pages
21st C Abstraction CP
21st C Abstraction 2
21st C Abstraction 3
21st C Abstraction 4
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21st C Abstraction 12
21st C Abstraction 13
21st C Abstraction 14
21st C Abstraction BC

For more information about the artists, please visit 21st Century Abstraction. This catalog can be requested by contacting the studio or directly from Abstraction21c.

The written material presented on this site is the intellectual property of the respective authors/publication.

The Erasing, 2018

David Bailin
with Essays by Ellis Widner and Leslie Peacock

This catalog is published in connection with the exhibitions The Erasings (May 2017) Boswell Mourot Gallery, Little Rock, AR; The Erasing (1 December - 26 January 2018) University of Arkansas-FS, Fort Smith, AR; The Erasing (October 2018) Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Seattle, WA © 2018 by David Bailin • Essay © Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Ellis Widner • Essay © Leslie Peacock

A printed catalog is available for $53 (PDF version $10) through Blurb Books, or purchase a copy through the Studio Gallery for $55.

The Erasing • 2018
Drawings by David Bailin
Essays by Ellis Widner and Leslie Peacock
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Disparate Acts Redux, 2015

David Bailin, Warren Criswell and Sammy Peters
Foreword by Colin Thompson and Essay by Leslie Peacock

David Bailin, Warren Criswell and Sammy Peters
with Foreword by Colin Thompson and Essay by Leslie Peacock
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This catalog is published in connection with the exhibitions Disparate Acts Redux (14 August - 3 October 2015) Butler Center of Arkansas Studies, Little Rock, AR; Disparate Acts (13 March - 16 April 2014) Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

A printed catalog is available for $45 (PDF version $10) through Blurb Books, or purchase a copy through the Studio Gallery for $45.

Large Drawings, 2010-2013

David Bailin
with introduction by Philip Martin

Large Drawings • 2010-2013
by David Bailin with introduction by Philip Martin
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Published for the exhibitions C and Dreams & Disasters at Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City, in 2012 and the exhibition Dreams & Disaster at The Arts and Science Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Dreams & Disasters the Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas. Text and images © 2013 by David Bailin • Introduction © 2013 Philip Martin

This softcover catalog is available for $25 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $35.

Paper Trails, 2010

David Bailin
with introduction by Ruth Pasquine
Quoted material by Leah Ollman and Peter Frank

Paper Trails
Drawings by David Bailin with introduction by Ruth Pasquine
Quoted material by Leah Ollman and Peter Frank
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Paper Trails was published in connection with the 2010 exhibition Paper Trails: Drawings by David Bailin at the Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

This softcover catalog is available for $20 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $30.

Washington's Profile, 2010

David Bailin
with essay by Leah Ollman

Washington’s Profile
Drawings by David Bailin with
essay by Leah Ollman
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This catalog is published in connection with the exhibition Washington' Profile: Drawings by David Bailin (December 12, 2008 through March 15, 2009) at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, Sioux Falls, SD.

This softcover catalog is available for $34 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $40.

Prophets, Parables, Paradoxes, 2000

David Bailin
Preface by Townsend Wolfe with essays by Ruth Pasquine and Warren Criswell

David Bailin
Recent works: Prophets, Parables, Paradoxes


Preface by Townsend Wolfe with essays by Ruth Pasquine and Warren Criswell
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Published in connection with the 2000 exhibition of the Midrash Drawings and Prophet series at the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR.

This softcover catalog is available as a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $30.

Observation


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Epiphany from the studio

On my drawing process

Observation from the studio

Graduation underdrawing
Graduation [underdrawing], n/d
I don't finish drawings, I exhaust the possibilities in each rendering. I revise and rework and more than likely destroy drawings. The last couple of years, only three drawings survived.

House, destroyed
House [underdrawing], n/d

I draw until the figure and the environment have weight—plasticity and narrative. I draw until I find a hook that sustains my viewing for more than a couple of days. If that hook doesn't last, then I go back to revising. Whatever began the drawing- the studies, the images from my boxes - is started again when I pick up my piece of charcoal. Because the mark is not the idea. I have to battle what making that mark means. Does it define the outside or the inside of the object? Is it defining a texture, a contour, or a tone?

Lake, destroyed
Lake [underdrawing], n/d

Since all of us have mark making down, we think it's automatic. At its fundamental level, a drawing is a progressively complex listing of strokes. Nothing more. To assume that you can express anything before controlling and manipulating the material is ridiculous.

That's not to say that you don't have a start. I have plenty of starts, plenty of ideas, but once you are on the paper it's a whole different game.




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