b. 1991, London, UK
Xavier Baxter is a painter who grapples with the abstracted figure, which he constructs from saturated swirls of oil, acrylic mediums, and spray paint manipulated with scrapers, palette knives, hands, and brushes. Baxter’s figures are larger than life, bent and contorted within the confines of the canvas. A storm of impastoed oval and linear shapes suggest limbs, faces, and eyes. Baxter was born in England to a family of artists and received a BA in sculpture from the City and Guilds University in London; he implements the formal techniques learned during his childhood and in school while experimenting with unique combinations of materials and brands of paint, seeking a surface quality inspired by the tactility and thickness achieved by artists such as Leon Kossoff, Anselm Kiefer, Jean Dubuffet, and Bram Bogart. Baxter lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited in shows across the UK as well as the US Germany, Denmark, Spain and Korea.
