Jennifer Baker

Jennifer Baker will produce a full color catalog of her body of work in advance of her first solo museum exhibition at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, PA from July-October 2019. Although the show begins in the summer, the deadline to begin production of the full catalog is December 2018. Jennifer will be showing her collection of paintings and monoprints of the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia over 30 years, documenting the dramatic changes the neighborhood has undergone, from urban blight to gentrification. Jennifer aims to have this catalogue not only serve as a guide through this western Pennsylvania exhibit, but with a wider audience both back at home in Philadelphia and beyond. 

A resident of Northern Liberties for more than 30 years, Jennifer will document the dramatic transformation of this 19th century working-class immigrant neighborhood to a 21st century neighborhood of hip young professionals in the Northern Liberties Project through paintings, monoprints, and written sketches. Her art work will examine the nature of a changing city, what that change actually looks like, and the impact that change has on people. She will show the work simultaneously in the spring of 2011 at Projects Gallery in Northern Liberties and at Art 101 in Brooklyn, New York, a neighborhood that has undergone similar upheavals. Jennifer hopes that her project will raise questions to the audience such as ‘where do people go when they are forced out of a neighborhood?’ and ‘what happens to a sense of community when individuals and demographics change?’ By presenting the work in the neighborhood as well as scheduling events such as readings and film screenings, she hope to bring in the audience that is most affected by the issue— her fellow residents.