Belonging
By Ignatius Baker
Eastern Edge Rogue Gallery | January 31-March 15, 2025
Reviewed by Maggie Burton
Belonging is Ignatius Baker’s first solo show, a series of screen-printed photographs taken at ponds around St. John’s, created while the artist was in residency at St. Michael’s Printshop in the fall of 2023. Baker says that Belonging is “a love letter to pond swimming after gender transition.” If it were indeed a letter, it would say something like: dear friend, I’ve found this beautiful space that’s safe for us to play in. Come here, come home.
The series begins with a set of darkly shaded prints: water droplets running down a window, ponds at the edge of darkness and light. A folding chair is set up playfully in the corner, complete with a beach towel, water bottle, sunglasses. Prints reappear in different colours, some with vegetation added in a layer on top of the photo. Some of the botanical prints resemble cyanotype photography in bright blues and whites. Baker’s playful use of repetition reminds me that the experience of pond swimming is an abundant one. In some prints, there is emphasis on the human form or its absence; ripples on the pond after someone jumped in; figures about to dive into the cold water. Baker’s use of negative space provided by the water and sky gives room for highly-contrasting blocks of colour, providing a solid backdrop for the human body.
Some of the walls are almost entirely screen-printed vegetation in vibrant blues and pinks, silvers and whites, lending the feeling of being at the pond’s edge before getting in the water or standing at the pond’s edge after getting out. Anticipation or relief. This series is evocative and intimate, full of sensory details. I could feel the too-cold water running down my shoulders at Soldier’s Pond; I could taste the picnic that my lover packed and brought to the Punch Bowl to share with me. There is an intimacy within the botanical prints that accentuates the vulnerability of being seen while swimming like the people in these photographs.
Always playful, this series explores colour with curiosity and abandon. The vibrant colours intensify the sensory experience of pond swimming and the more muted pastels remind me of the psychic peace that comes with the swim. Using the colours of the trans flag, Baker’s prints center the trans experience by viewing the pond as if through a filter of pinks and blues. By using different hues and shades of these colours, Baker seems to consider the multitude of different experiences that exist within the trans community. Baker’s show challenges the belief that there is, politically, one objective way to experience life as a trans or queer person; that there is a singular transness or queerness. I was moved by the way that the different shades of pink and blue helped reinforce the message that there are many ways of seeing the world, even (or perhaps especially) within a small community. As Baker says in the wall label at the beginning of the series, “I am the only true witness to both my anxiety and my joy as I move through life.” Throughout this show, the viewer joins Baker in witnessing a belonging from the artist’s perspective. We are less alone because of Ignatius Baker’s work, and more importantly, we are reminded that we belong at the pond. I’ll meet you at the Punch Bowl.
Maggie Burton is a Newfoundland writer, violinist, and municipal politician. Her debut book of poetry, Chores, won the 2024 Griffin Canadian First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in Prism, The Malahat Review, Riddle Fence, Room, Best Canadian Poetry, and elsewhere.
March 2025