Dean Baldwin

Several of Dean Baldwin’s works reveal his concern for rigorous, even obsessive, documentation of everyday bodily actions. Attempt at an Inventory is a colossal “food diary” that projects us into a world that is at once tempting and disquieting. This attempt at an inventory invites one to visually feast on the artist’s intimate relationship with food, all the while raising questions about our — excessive or not — food consumption habits. One could view this as a reference to illustrated delicatessen-type restaurant menus. However, Baldwin’s numerous colour photographs show gourmet dishes that have already been contaminated by unrestrained hunger. The photos read like an open diary, or like evidence collected by a private investigator — not as detritus, but to reveal unashamed gluttony, delicacy or the everyday necessity for fuel. Dean Baldwin lives and works in Toronto.