Carrie Anne Baade Brings Cute and Creepy to FSU
Kathie Olivas, Sentimental, oil on canvas
Baade has just returned from Italy, thanks in part to an FSU planning grant, where she attended a workshop with Ernst Fuchs, a founder of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. She and other artists worked to document Fuch’s process and record his methods, “thus preserving the techniques of a recent master.” She plans to explore these practices during her Materials and Techniques course in the spring.
This fall, Baade’s been busy curating “Cute and Creepy,” a exhibition of macabre contemporary art that her students respond to in a big way.
“The work in this exhibit reflects my tastes and interests, but also the evolution of artists who have become my community. Six years ago, the Pop Surrealism genre developed, and artists such as Kris Kuksi, Richard Kirk, Travis Louie, and I were showing in New York and Berlin. Becoming fast friends and fans of these fellow artists, I wanted to do everything in my ability to help promote those who paired skill with unique vision.
“There is work that is far darker. It’s the playfulness that makes these works endearing. For example, Jessica Joslin creates delightfully retrofitted, articulated animal sculptures. Kate Clark makes disarmingly beautiful dioramas of animals with quixotic human faces that makes one want to collect these freakish pets.
“It’s my desire to seduce new art lovers and with this enchanting contemporary art that is so easy to adore,” she says. “It is so satisfying to bring an exhibition to town that they will be universally excited about.”