As an artist and subject in my work, I serve as the steward and the ax man to art's legacy. Studying with art conservators and looking at the old masters has informed my choice to revitalize the archaic traditions of both traditional oil painting and egg tempera. My subjects are adopted from religion and mythology; these are often cautionary tales that mirror my personal experience. In desiring to speak to the complexity of the human condition, I use this language of allegory and narrative to relate my own story, which is at once an age old.
The ideas for my work may start in the fanciful and idealized world of the mind, yet something must be generated to observe from. To begin a composition, I start with scissors, clipping fragments, composing from snippets of several hundred pictures scattered about me on the floor. A prototype collage of layered scraps with cut edges is created that includes an array of photographs and images from art history. Looking at this collage, a painting is executed in a trompe l'oeil manner showing the multiple layers with cut edges which suggest the complexity of individual's psychologies – their masks and their hidden secrets. To create these paintings, I cut up and serve the reinvigorated past to be contemplated in context of the contemporary.
— Carrie Ann Baade