Donald Baechler | Plant | 2003

Donald Baechler’s works are influenced by American folk art, Pop artists of the 1960s like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, the built-up surfaces of American painter Cy Twombly and German figurative artists like Walter Dahn. Baechler began showing in New York in the 1980s when his peers were taking graffiti to the street. Baechler instead saw painting as a conceptual, not political, practice informed by ideas and history. Baechler’s works vibrate with expressive lines, bringing a nervous energy to his often-absurd tableaux. 

Plant, 2003, is cast with Baechler’s familiar jumpy lines and roughed up surface, as if the petals are trembling in the wind. Yet there is a dark side to this cheery little work. Baechler calls his series of black tulip paintings “funereal.” Indeed, as any gardener knows, we must kill a flower to capture and contain it. As in his other work, Baechler creates a cheerful smile for a somber topic.