Ride to Live, Live to Ride
2004

Ride to Live, Live to Ride is rooted in Kristin Baker's biography: the large-scale painting's title, electric palette, shiny PVC support, and intimations of speed allude to an interest in auto racing that was fostered by her parents. Ride to Live, Live to Ride conveys a sense of speed, violence, and directness, not only through its overlapping layers and fragmented forms, but also through engaging the tensions between formal abstraction and representation. Shards of color radiate outward from its center, and the composition is punctuated by passages of translucent gray that suggest plumes of smoke. "I strive for the sound and the smell, the two key elements of being at a race,” Baker notes. “I want that feeling to be in the painting.”