Arts and Letters

Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa, b. 1985, Watford City, ND) creates paintings that juxtapose unexpected materials—astroturf and acrylic yarn stitched alongside willow and buckskin—in abstract landscapes that emerge from her "knack for carrying place with me as I move." Through abstraction, she conveys the embodied experience and sense memory of places she knows well.

Baker began working with astroturf nearly ten years ago, drawn to its unfamiliarity from her Northern Plains upbringing. She discovered astroturf’s versatility in forming contours and holding yarn, paint, and other materials, its synthetic surface wryly echoing Plains grasses. Her process is fluid: she rearranges lines of yarn on the astroturf, letting them find their shape before stitching them in place.

This exhibition marks a new direction for Baker: two suspended double-sided paintings, made for this gallery, invite viewers to experience them from multiple perspectives. One of these paintings, begun in her Los Angeles backyard, was exposed to ash and smoke from the January 2025 wildfires. Baker often works outside; the exhibition's titular work, Twenty Minutes to Sunset (2023), was created in dialogue with changing daylight, its layered astroturf topography evoking the Midwest’s undulating terrain. Other recent works include Expanse (2023), with its quiet palette and asymmetrical grid of fields, dotted with willow and beads, reminiscent of the Northern Plains, and Field Notes (2022), featuring a horizon line traversing multiple media. These recent paintings offer what Baker calls “the reward of material surprise.”

The exhibition's title, Twenty Minutes to Sunset, points to the close of the working day imposed as daylight fades in Baker’s outdoor studio. This natural deadline takes on additional resonance amid today’s climate urgencies. For Baker, it also suggests possibility—a reminder of time's passage and the light that lingers before darkness.

Arts and Letters will host an opening celebration for the exhibition on Sunday, April 13, from 3–6pm. During the opening, Teresa Baker will give a gallery talk at 4pm. All are welcome. Please let us know if you plan to attend here.

Twenty Minutes to Sunset is organized by Kristin Poor, Curator, and supported by the Wolf Kahn Foundation. Special thanks to Headlands Center for the Arts and to the lenders to the exhibition: the Gochman Family Collection; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art; and de boer, Los Angeles & Antwerp.