The imagery in Lauren Schiller's small oil-on-wood paintings is drawn from food-related memories, associations, and rituals. Working with dioramas, still life objects and landscapes, Schiller creates environments that touch on personal and cultural idiosyncrasies, especially as they are revealed by food customs. Themes include food and morality, food and identity, and food and religious practice.
Tom Baker's relief and silkscreen prints make use of recurring personal imagery. The final prints are less a narrative and more an impression of his thoughts. Drawn elements are printed over transparent layers of color and pattern, creating a relationship between representation and abstraction. Although his prints are simple, ordered, and direct, their meaning remains open to interpretation. Schiller and Baker received their BFA degrees from East Carolina University and their MFA degrees from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. After graduate school, they taught printmaking at Utah State University for four years. Schiller is an associate professor at Seton Hall University, where she teaches painting and printmaking. Baker is an assistant professor of printmaking at Monmouth University.