artist spotlight: Stella Maria Baer

What lies beyond Earth is profoundly captivating. It is, in a sense, completely imaginary-- as most of us have never been to space or seen it with our own eyes. But we know that it's there... It reminds us every day; the motion of the tides; the rise and fall of the sun and her nocturnal counterpart; the tiny dots which scatter the night sky.. appearing barely the size of grains of sand, but rumored to subsist as massive balls of plasma and cosmic gas. Maybe they hold souls; maybe they hold stories; but they've been around longer and seen more than any human has or will have. In regards to our timeline, space and all of her children are the closest to permanent that anything will ever be... and few things have the power to make us feel as utterly dwarfed-- and yet totally reverential-- as the Universe and solar system. I recently stumbled across the artistic works of Santa Fe-based painter Stella Maria Baer and found myself washed again by this sentiment. But this time, there was something else... for once, I felt a warm tinge of familiarity in the company of my once-intimidating brush with infiniteness. Baer has clearly taken the time to get to know these stellar structures; to love them and respect them... And somehow she manages to capture their magnitude and ancient wisdom on a two-dimensional surface that the viewer can hold with his or her own hands. What is an artist. 

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Check out Stella Maria Baer's full portfolio and print shop here.