Digital artist Kemahee Baker, one of the local Black artists featured in “Bring a Folding Chair” at the Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) until January 7, began her journey as an artist in an unusual way: she first tried creating art after a particularly vivid dream, in which she was painting a beautiful lion.
That inspiring dream came in the wake of devastation. A terrible car accident left Baker (whose first name, she says, is pronounced “like Hawai’i) with trauma and chronic pain. Then came a period of rehabilitation, including counselling and physiotherapy. In her earlier life, Baker’s creative spirit came out in dance, which she couldn’t do in the aftermath of the car accident.
It was in rehab that she was told she needed another creative outlet. Then came that dream. It was actually God showing her how to paint in that dream, Baker recalls. Upon waking, she decided to try painting that lion — and there it was, just like in her dream. Not least inspiring to her was the subject: lions, Baker says, are symbolic of Jesus, and of “coming back strong.”
Baker says that art “feels like it’s a calling now.” From that first painting on, she has used art as therapy in her healing. She’s been an artist for 12 years now, painting in acrylics on canvas, and started creating digital mixed media pieces three years ago.
Finding that creative outlet has also allowed Baker to express her experience with her bouts of depression, her “seasons,” as she calls them. The portraits on display at the AGB, “Grace Beneath the Water,” were “birthed out of a hard season,” Baker explains. The Black women in the pieces are both underwater because, Baker says, “During that season, I felt like I was drowning.”
Viewers will notice that the women in the portraits look peaceful and calm. For Baker, that peace comes from her faith. “The peace comes from knowing God is with me no matter where I am, in what season.”
Even though during that “season” she is referencing in the portraits, she certainly “didn’t feel okay,” she says, “I’ve been walking with the Lord for so long [I knew] I can get through this, too.” Baker has found that her art and perspective on depression as a season resonates with people, particularly if they experience their own seasons of depression. “Even if they feel like they can’t make it another day,” she says, it’s that message that “life can be beautiful even if it’s hard.” Whether that beauty comes from viewing art or making it, through faith or love, that beauty might be enough to help get us through another day, and another, until that season passes.
Indeed, viewing Baker’s art at the AGB, you feel a sense of serenity. The colours are vibrant; the peacefull expressions and light that play across the women’s faces create that sense of calm and warmth, despite the otherworldliness of drifting amongst jellyfish, bubbles, and floating flowers. And Baker herself also exudes warmth and calm, all the more inspiring when you learn about her traumatic experiences and seasons.
When she’s not creating digital art, Baker can be found mentoring youth and young adults, or writing and performing spoken word poetry. Dancing is also back on the table, and she, alongside her husband Kamau Baker, can be found on social media dancing to Christian hip hop tracks (follow along @kemahee_bakerr). Some of the tracks are her husband’s — he is a musician, singer, and rapper (on Instagram, @kamau.bakerr). Baker’s prints can be purchase online through her website (Every Good n’ Perfect Gift), and, of course, you can visit “Bring a Folding Chair” at the AGB to see her work before January 7.
