Josephine Baker (b. 1990, London) is an artist based in London. Through sculpture, installation and drawing, Baker examines the crossovers between human infrastructure and the natural world. The artist unites found materials across nature and engineering, from chalk, oak and pine to concrete, barbed wire and bitumen roofing. Inspired by visual motifs found in industrial forms such as oil-rig tethers, agricultural harrows, or mining drills, Baker reconfigures and reimagines structures associated with extraction and collision. The influence of heavy machinery becomes transformed through Baker’s fictitious landscapes and ethereal, mechatronic creatures. The artist studies how materials in space bear the physical stories of their human-produced beginnings, reminders of ecological catastrophe and geopolitical crisis. Her assemblages offer narratives of labour and attrition, of physical borders and separation, growth and resilience. Baker offers a new practice of landscape representation, removed from modern imperialist worldviews to take on new speculative meanings.

Baker holds a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2012) and a Postgraduate Diploma from Royal Academy Schools (2017). 

Solo exhibitions include ‘Prime Mover: Stack’, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London (2023); Frieze London, Focus Section with Nir Altman, London (2022); ‘Outfallers’, Nir Altman, Munich (2022); ‘Clear out the wounds closest to the sun’, V.O Curations, London (2021); ‘The Land Lies’, ChertLüdde BUNGALOW, Berlin (2020); ‘Islands’, Kupfer Project Space, London (2019); ‘Correction’, Tintype, London (2019); ‘Night Music’, British School at Rome, Rome (2018).

Her works have been featured in group exhibitions at British Museum, London (2022); MiArt, Milan (2022); Nir Altman, Munich (2021); Drawing Room, London (2021); Sundy, London (2020); V.O. Curations, London (2020); progettoarte-elm, Milan (2019); Tintype, London (2019); GAO gallery, London (2019); Drawing Room, London (2019); Love Unlimited, Glasgow (2018); , Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019).

Baker was artist-in-residence at V.O Curations, London (2021); Xenia, Hampshire (2022). She was awarded the The Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac Hon RA Prize (2017) and shortlisted for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award (2019).