Kevin Baer

Kevin Baer

Denver, CO

My art is a means for investigating the passage of time, the decay of physical things, and the truth of mortality. I explore these concepts through process-oriented artworks that emphasize ritual and material. The process is communicated with the creation of relics, often existing as works on paper, photographs, or the remains of degenerated sculptures. These relics bear witness to the process. Material exploration and an alchemical inclination drives the work. I engage with materials that feel elemental and essential but are also fragile and ever changing - bone, dirt, ice, ash, stone, salt. I focus on themes of temporal change and natural cycles of death and rebirth because they remain central to our existence. Through my work I aim to offer viewers an experience of being ‘present,’ aware of our existence in time and mindful of life’s temporal nature. My intention is to evoke feelings of gratitude and humility born from a sense of our shared impermanence.

Kevin Baer was born in Denver, Colorado to an architect father and sculptor mother.

Family hikes and camping trips in the Rocky Mountains gave him an appreciation and interest in the natural world. Kevin continues to approach projects in his studio with a Boy Scout’s pragmatism and a scientist’s fervent curiosity.

He attended college in California, attaining his bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University. Graduate study brought him to Louisiana where he earned his MFA at the University of New Orleans.

A few years ago, Kevin moved from New Orleans to Colorado to be near his parents and reconnect with the mountain landscape of his youth.

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An Act of Generosity II (2016)

This piece is a response to the practice known as sky burial. Within the work the ritual takes on a different physical form; instead of vultures and dead human flesh, a smaller, more passive interaction with local scavenging animals - pigeons, blue jays, and squirrels - feeding on cast human bones made of birdseed and gelatin. The images captured by a camera looking up through a sheet of glass that held the birdseed bones. The image relates to the gaze of the resting bodies of those who have passed - motionless and looking skyward.

Digital photograph on aluminum. 20" x 30" x 1"

Vessel Memory (2013)

The form of the cast sugar glass sculpture is derived from Egyptian canopic jars. The cast sugar object acts as a vehicle for the observation of disintegration. The sugar glass sculptures melt from the sun and erode from the rain. Here, captured in a photograph, the sugar vessel appears at its most intact, preserved in a moment, freshly created before it decays.

Digital photograph on aluminum. 30" x 20" x 1"

Ribeye Steak = Cow (2024)

Organic matter, water on paper

Diptych, 28" x 20.5" x 2.5" each

Denver, CO

An Act of Generosity II (2016)

Vessel Memory (2013)

Ribeye Steak = Cow (2024)

Organic matter, water on paper

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