Emerita Baik

INFO

Name	Emerita Baik (she/her)
Country of Birth	Aotearoa
Place of Residence	New York City
Ethnicities	Korean
Dealer Gallery	Robert Heald Gallery
Artform	Visual arts
Decades Active	2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Emerita Baik is a contemporary artist from Aotearoa, currently living in New York City. She is known for her textile sculptures, which often combine Korean wrapping and quilting techniques with sculpting methods such as concrete and polyurethane casting and silicone moulding. This blending of visual languages reflects Baik’s conceptual melding of cultural influences, to explore experiences of cultural ‘in-betweenness’, communication barriers, and the sacrifices that immigrant parents make for their children.

Baik grew up in Kirikiriroa Hamilton with her mother, who had immigrated to Aotearoa from South Korea before she and her siblings were born. Objects from her family home were the starting point for the sculptures in Baik’s 2020 exhibition at Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, 꿈 / ɯnʞʞ. In her commissioned response to the exhibition, Rose Lu wrote:

Tokens of significance, like prayer cards and photographs, become rickety echoes of their former selves when transformed into stacked sculptures. [...] These sculptures ask us to question what we need to create a life. Many of us have moved across oceans, taking with us items that will recreate the former home in the new home. Is that which cannot be reproduced irrevocably lost in this process? Can a replica conjure up the same sensations and memories? What are we seeking in the rituals of recreation?

Baik uses a variety of textiles, including everyday materials such as sheets and shower curtains, as well as fabrics such as ramie. Of her choice of materials, Baik has said, “Fabric as a material can mean something very personal for everyone” and “Exploring these materials and their contradicting relationships to articulate ideas relating to Korean migrant experiences interests me”. These fabrics are quilted (using both Western methods and Korean techniques such as nubi), wrapped and knotted (referencing Korean bottari). These acts of wrapping, and the soft sculptural collages coming off the walls that they are displayed on, allude to the emotional tension and weight of cultural displacement, language barriers, and the idea of holding personal values close despite difficulties sharing and expressing them. In her 2019 exhibition, I love more than two loves, Baik made a series of quilts that were each named for someone she knows who experiences language barriers in their life.

Baik graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons First Class) from Massey University, Wellington, in 2019. In 2023 she received a Fulbright Award to undertake a Master of Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York City.