Bailin Studio

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Exhibitions, Workshops, Catalogs and Newsletters

Gallery Affiliation

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Koplin Del Rio

3423 E. Denny Way
Seattle, WA 98122

appointment only: (206) 999-0849

Visit Koplin Del Rio online

Directions to Koplin Del Rio

M2 Gallery

1300 Main Street
Little Rock, AR 72202

Gallery Hours: Tuesday–Saturday 10am–5pm

Visit M2 Gallery online

Directions to M2 Gallery

Exhibitions

Current

HE LEFT A PAPER TRAIL
Selected Drawings

Curated by ARTYARD

June 27 - October 11, 2026

ARTYARD
13 Front Street • Frenchtown, NJ

Gallery Hours:
Thursday
11 AM – 7 PM
Friday – Sunday
11 AM – 5 PM

Exhibition Directions

Bailin approaches each blank page as if a theatrical space to be occupied, activated. Each sheet becomes the site of a performance—Bailin’s own gestural charcoal dance and his character’s parallel search for a place, a form, a moment of reprieve.

– Leah Ollman • Catalog Essay • 2008

…

When I decided back in the 1990’s that the logo to my first website would be “He left a Paper Trail,” I thought it was a humorous take on my commitment to create works on paper. After all these years though, leaving a paper trail has become my artistic practice as well as a legacy built on all the resulting drawings, successful or otherwise, of that practice.

…

The activities my characters performed and emotions they demonstrated within the interiors and exteriors I drew haven’t change much in the years covered by this exhibition: a man, or men, searching, digging, arranging, collecting, confused, dumbfounded, driven, angry, exhausted, forever battling against something beyond the edge of the page and leaving footprints, papers, books, and other objects in his/their wake, persevering no matter how absurd that action may be.

…

I spend a lot of my time thinking through ideas and working on translating those ideas into images. I am not an artist who starts by playing with the materials or with some kind of ritual. Every drawing is a deep hole I've dug, climbed into and then attempted to get out of…a back-and-forth process of drawing in and erasing out, from having an idea or image revealing itself one minute then to become part of the traces left on the surface like paper trails.

Independent Study & Workshops

For more information contact the studio.

Independent Drawing

I am available for independent study in basic, advanced and figure drawing. Independent Drawing is designed to give students individualized attention in solving problems and developing techniques encountered in their practice. After an initial consultation, we meet one on one following a special course of focused study to improve technical and visual skills. Contact the studio with questions or for more information.

Bailin Studio
Wellfleet, MA 02667

Collections & Past Exhibitions

Exhibition Catalogs

2000 – 2009

The Gatherings, 2023

David Bailin
with Essay by Kimberly Clark

This catalog is published in connection with the exhibitions Gatherings at the Art of Paper Fair in New York City [September 2022] and on line at The Viewing Room, Artsy.com [July 2023]. © 2023 by David Bailin • Essay © Kimberly Clark

A printed catalog is available for $35 (PDF version $5.99) through Blurb Books, or purchase a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $40.

The Gatherings • 2023
Drawings by David Bailin
Essay by Kimberly Clark

gatherings Introduction and ocean tide info

gatherings throwback and burnt fiield Introduction

gatherings the watch and windows Introduction

gatherings intrusion and ravine Introduction

gatherings intrusion and restrain ntroduction

21st Century Abstraction:
From Roots to Celebration of the New, 2019

Essay by Peter Frank

For more information about the artists, please visit 21st Century Abstraction. This catalog can be requested by contacting the studio or directly from Abstraction21c.

The written material presented on this site is the intellectual property of the respective authors/publication.

Catalog Image is cropped.

21st Century Abstraction • 2019
Ledbetter, Ellis, Connally, Bailin, Peter, Liu
Essay by Peter Frank

Selected pages

The Erasing, 2018

David Bailin
with Essays by Ellis Widner and Leslie Peacock

This catalog is published in connection with the exhibitions The Erasings (May 2017) Boswell Mourot Gallery, Little Rock, AR; The Erasing (1 December - 26 January 2018) University of Arkansas-FS, Fort Smith, AR; The Erasing (October 2018) Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Seattle, WA © 2018 by David Bailin • Essay © Arkansas Democrat-Gazette by Ellis Widner • Essay © Leslie Peacock

A printed catalog is available for $55 (PDF version $10) through Blurb Books, or purchase a copy through the Studio Gallery for $60.

The Erasing • 2018
Drawings by David Bailin
Essays by Ellis Widner and Leslie Peacock

Disparate Acts Redux, 2015

David Bailin, Warren Criswell and Sammy Peters
Foreword by Colin Thompson and Essay by Leslie Peacock

David Bailin, Warren Criswell and Sammy Peters
with Foreword by Colin Thompson and Essay by Leslie Peacock

This catalog is published in connection with the exhibitions Disparate Acts Redux (14 August - 3 October 2015) Butler Center of Arkansas Studies, Little Rock, AR; Disparate Acts (13 March - 16 April 2014) Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR

A printed catalog is available for $45 (PDF version $10) through Blurb Books, or purchase a copy through the Studio Gallery for $45.

Large Drawings, 2010-2013

David Bailin
with introduction by Philip Martin

Large Drawings • 2010-2013
by David Bailin with introduction by Philip Martin

Published for the exhibitions C and Dreams & Disasters at Koplin Del Rio Gallery, Culver City, in 2012 and the exhibition Dreams & Disaster at The Arts and Science Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Dreams & Disasters the Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas. Text and images © 2013 by David Bailin • Introduction © 2013 Philip Martin

This softcover catalog is available for $25 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $35.

Paper Trails, 2010

David Bailin
with introduction by Ruth Pasquine
Quoted material by Leah Ollman and Peter Frank

Paper Trails
Drawings by David Bailin with introduction by Ruth Pasquine
Quoted material by Leah Ollman and Peter Frank

Paper Trails was published in connection with the 2010 exhibition Paper Trails: Drawings by David Bailin at the Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

This softcover catalog is available for $20 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $30.

Washington's Profile, 2010

David Bailin
with essay by Leah Ollman

Washington’s Profile
Drawings by David Bailin with essay by Leah Ollman

This catalog is published in connection with the exhibition Washington' Profile: Drawings by David Bailin (December 12, 2008 through March 15, 2009) at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, Sioux Falls, SD.

This softcover catalog is available for $35 through Blurb Books, order a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $40.

Prophets, Parables, Paradoxes, 2000

David Bailin
Preface by Townsend Wolfe with essays by Ruth Pasquine and Warren Criswell

David Bailin
Recent works: Prophets, Parables, Paradoxes

Preface by Townsend Wolfe with essays by Ruth Pasquine and Warren Criswell

Published in connection with the 2000 exhibition of the Midrash Drawings and Prophet series at the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR.

This softcover catalog is available as a signed copy through the Studio Gallery for $30.

Newsletters

2013 +

Drawing Conclusions

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Websites

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Observation

Epiphany from the studio

The Anxiety of Style

Reflections from an old artist

Young Artist with paintings, 1974

I just found some photographs of paintings I created in college. It reminded me of how artists come to develop a style. Students use negation and hybridization as a method to come to grips with the anxiety of creating something new and personal. Negation is the easiest way to create a semblance of uniqueness. Take the current practice and do everything opposite. I am reminded of Mannerist artists during the 16th century, who in the face of the great masters of the Renaissance, produced work that turned the rational approach of their mentors upside down (perspective, local color, rational composition, etc.). For me, it was playing with color field painting and gesture painting.

Field Painting, oil & shoes on canvas, 6' x 6', 1974

Another way that the anxiety of style is handled in student work is through synthesis and hybridization. In the painting on the right, I combined the rough edged matte-knife strokes of Clifford Still with the lyrical abstract paintings of Philip Guston. The anxiety is apparent in the scratchy, nervous and agitated painting surface created by using my fingers to apply the paint and made all the more so by deliberately and self-consciously dumbing down the subject matter into child-like diagrammatic imagery.

First Meeting, oil on canvas, 6' x 9', 1976

Whether the work was successful, it does contain my subsequent interest in humor and narrative (see my early work here). But style can't be forced even by the most competitive art student. And with what style mature artists end up can't be justified or avoided. To paraphrase the rhetorical and wonderfully post-modernist riddle posed by that old Blackglama ad campaign: What becomes a style most? Insert your work here.