Of the many visual references that have informed Baldwin’s work, Pop art imagery is perhaps one of the earliest. Artists such as Peter Blake, Hockney and Rauschenberg influenced Baldwin’s early practice while he was studying at art college, and the stylistic importance of Pop art are still evident in his work today. It is perhaps no surprise then that Baldwin’s latest paintings reference an image from one of the most iconic figures of Pop art’s history - Andy Warhol.

This week Eyestorm is proud to present four new paintings by Dan Baldwin, titled After Warhol 1, After Warhol 2 and After Warhol 3 and Dew on a Tree Stump.

Baldwin describes these works on paper as allowing him to experiment with colour, composition and form, the finished pieces potentially leading to larger paintings in the future as well as existing as artworks in their own right.

Andy Warhol was one of the founders of the American Pop art movement, and is known for his bold images that commented on the growth of celebrity culture and consumerism in the 1960s. However, it is not the bright repetitive images of Marilyn Monroe, Coca-Cola bottles, or Campbell Soup cans that Baldwin draws upon in these paintings. Instead, he looks at one of the more surprising series in Warhol’s oeuvre - his ‘Flowers’ paintings. Despite the thematic departure (or perhaps because of it), Warhol’s ‘Flowers’ remain fresh and relevant over half a decade later, and it is this timelessness that inspired Baldwin to create his own versions - ‘After Warhol’.

With a respectful nod to the Pop artist, Baldwin uses Warhol’s bright bold flowers as a starting point for these paintings. However, far from being a direct appropriation, Baldwin manipulates the image and re-creates it for himself, adding his own layers of motifs including the birds, barbed wire, and skeletal hand seen in previous Baldwin works. Where Warhol would place his flowers in groups, often repeated across the canvas like wall-paper, here Baldwin zooms in on the flowers, subtly abstracting them and placing them in surprising compositions - in some cases sharply cropping them out of view, allowing the other elements of the painting to come forward.

Alongside After Warhol 1, After Warhol 2 and After Warhol 3, a fourth painting Dew on a Tree Stump can be seen as an extension of this process. Here, the Warhol flower is almost completely abstracted and Baldwin’s distinctive motifs of the bird and tree take a more prominent place. This work in particular, illustrates the way in which Baldwin starts with an element. Whether that is an image, object, colour, or simply a brushstroke, he works on it in various ways, adding and subtracting different elements until he feels the balance is just right. Through this process, Baldwin allows the original Warhol motif to evolve and transform into his own interpretation of it.

As seen in previous Baldwin paintings, the artist explores both the subtle tension and the harmony between the different elements of the paintings: the figurative and the abstract; the dark and the bright; symbols of life, and those of death. Uniquely, Baldwin never plans his paintings and these new works therefore offer us a fresh insight into his creative process. While the starting point was Warhol, the end point was determined by the artist experimenting and trusting his instincts.

The artist allows his works to develop naturally, building up the various layers like a collage and balancing a process of risk-taking versus careful selection. The intention is not to create chaos or randomness, but in fact the very opposite. Baldwin keeps working until all his elements balance in perfect harmony with each other. Knowing how far to go - when to stop and when to push further - is a skill he has perfected over almost 30 years of painting.

The four new paintings, After Warhol 1, After Warhol 2 and After Warhol 3 and Dew on a Tree Stump, and a few select print editions can be found on Dan Baldwin’s artist page here.