Allison Baker - A Collection of Things About Men I Used to Know

February 13 - March 14, 2026

Artist Statement
A Collection of Things About Men I Used to Know presents a series of intimate vignettes in quiet opposition to traditions of display, excess, and moral clarity. Reminiscent of Dutch Golden Age dinner still lifes that flaunt ostentatious wealth, the work turns instead toward what is unresolved: tenderness entangled with disappointment, desire shaped by scarcity, and relationships marked by uneven power and class expectation.
The work explores class alongside the “diseases of despair,” situating intimacy as a space where these forces quietly manifest. While the objects follow a narrative of attempted transcendence they simultaneously reveal the incongruity and failure of fully assimilating or shedding a working-class or poverty-class upbringing. What remains visible are the habits, attachments, and negotiations formed under conditions of scarcity, even after material circumstances shift.
At its core, the work seeks to humanize the ripple effects of poverty as they surface within relationships. A Collection of Things About Men I Used to Know is made with the intention that the American working class and working poor might recognize themselves in these spaces—where their lives, desires, and contradictions are represented holistically and without judgment or being aesthetically co-opted by outsiders.

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Artist Bio

Allison Baker is a first-generation college student that earned her MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work and monumental public sculptures memorialize the complexities of late-stage capitalism, illuminating the aspirations and struggles of the American working class and working poor. Allison seeks to build monuments that challenge dominant narratives, humanize the ripple effects of poverty, and create work that the American working class and working poor can see as a reflection of their own experiences in gallery and museum spaces where their existence is seldom represented holistically. Allison has exhibited widely nationally and internationally including the CICA Museum, Spartanburg Art Museum, Hashimoto Contemporary, and Franconia Sculpture Park where her largest public sculpture is currently exhibited.

Allison Baker - A Collection of Things About Men I Used to Know

Inventory

1.  Slow Roll, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18"
2.  Somewhere, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 30 x 20”
3.  Actions Have Consequences -or- I’m Sick but I’m Pretty, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
4.  Trust Nothing, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 30 x 20”,
5.  I am Trash and I feel like Garbage, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 30x20”
6.  Happy Fucking Valentines Day, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 10x7”
7.  Needs and Necessities, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
8.  Unconventional Vessel, Coloraid paper on cold press, 10 x 7”
9.  Oracle, bronze and sand, 6.5 x 19 x 12”
10.  Ungracefully aging but never growing up, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
11.  Four days and $100 worth of Sandwiches -or- Bread is really, really expensive in Alaska, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
12.  Two of Every Kind, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x18”
13.  Manual Labor, Coloraid paper and pencil on cold press, 10 x 7”
14.  A 5am Pancake Response to Nightmares, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
15.  Cigarettes in Small Bathtubs, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”
16.  Good Folks Live in Hard Places, Coloraid paper and pencil on cold press, 10 x 7”
    
    ​17.  It’s Always Afternoon, Coloraid paper and oil pastels on cold press, 24 x 18”