Exhibition - Glen Baldridge: Headlights

Glen Baldridge’s 9th solo show with the gallery, Headlights, features a series of works on paper created using experimental printmaking techniques, building on the artist’s 20+ years of innovation in the studio. Each large-scale piece presents a unique image of animals inhabiting the area around a New England pond. Over the past decade, Baldridge has developed an extensive archive of thousands of these photographs captured by a motion-sensor camera placed near the pond. This collection includes images of stag deer, fawns, otters, coyotes, and blue herons—pictures he has previously referred to as “animal selfies.”

These works incorporate a range of technical and experimental processes, including photography, screenprinting, painting, and reductive drawing. Baldridge begins with bold washes of watercolor and ink on heavy paper to establish a vibrant ground. He then screenprints a negative photographic image using clear UV ink, which seals the paper and acts as a resist. The image is “developed” through a process of rubbing in, pouring, and painting additional layers of watercolor and drawing inks, which are then buffed clean with wet rags. Pigment remains only in the unsealed areas, creating an effect reminiscent of hand-tinted photographs or lithographs, while the rough edges of the images evoke palladium prints. Light and shadow are manipulated— flipped, inverted, or heavily saturated—to reveal an alternative perspective.

Baldridge’s psychedelic palette subtly references wooded areas as sites of teenage pharmacological exploration, as well as artistic traditions of magic realism and the study of light. Through his layered process, he navigates moments of discovery, each step yielding unpredictable results and offering a unique glimpse into the natural world.