Travers (Head to the Wall) 1981

Jo Baer made "Travers (Head to the Wall)" using paint on canvas; I am not sure exactly when she made it, but it is a very interesting piece. Baer’s mark-making and color palette are so understated, yet they suggest the artmaking process is almost like archaeology, unearthing images rather than creating them from scratch. The canvas seems to breathe with subtle textures, achieved through thin, transparent layers of paint. There are ghostly figures of horses and humans that emerge from the ground. Look closely at the lower half of the painting. You can see the trace of a curved line, like a spine, subtly modeled, suggesting a figure hunched over. This relates to the title, and the piece feels melancholic in its entirety, and the use of a monochromatic palette and layering adds to the dream like nature of it. Baer's earlier minimalist paintings feel like a world away from this later representational work. This piece also has a dialogue with the ghostly figures of Susan Rothenberg. Ultimately, art embraces ambiguity, inviting multiple interpretations and emotions, over fixed meaning.