Something dark is brooding within the black powdered surfaces of Baldridge’s drawings: the angst and confusion of American youth, or perhaps the emblazoned fury of an ecology at odds with its inhabitants. The work explores a state of mind that is self-conscious and unsure, referencing the nihilistic aesthetics of Black Metal and incorporating them into the context of our current uncertain times. Black and white burned-out forest scenes, derived from poor quality jpeg images are inverted to conjure stark white trunks emphatically erased by hand from a solid black graphite sky. The result is a crude starkness. In their soft and subtle surfaces they summon thoughts of an angered presence among the trees as if setting themselves ablaze out of rage or defiance. However, a self aware sense of humor at work refuses to let the demons play too hard. Two large drawings spell out the words Never Forgive and Never Ever both formed by the shapes of wildflowers embedded deep into the paper through a fog of smudges and marks from the process of painstakingly transferring the graphite pigment with a tattoo gun. The reversed text might be read as if scrawled in the mirror somewhere beside REDRUM.

Another highlight in the exhibition is a diptych woodblock print of two geometrically styled fists, one bearing the word OKAY, the other FINE tattooed in gothic script on the bare knuckles. The print is especially distinct because of its unusual technique: mixing forms of traditional relief woodblock with intaglio in a type-set inspired matrix of free blocks. The print is published jointly by Forth Estate Editions and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.