Exhibition Opening: Marc Baseman and Wes Mills | Selected Works

Studio light | space presents selected works by Marc Baseman and Wes Mills, artists whose practices have developed in conversation since their arrival in Taos in 1991. Both have sustained careers of considerable scope: Mills represented in major collections from MoMA to the Whitney, Baseman exhibiting across the country from the Harwood Museum onward. This exhibition focuses on the particular intensity of their drawing practice.

Baseman’s compositions, many measuring just over three inches on each side, achieve their power through precision. Working at miniature scale, he manipulates negative space and layered horizons to create depth that rewards sustained attention. Mills brings parallel rigor to his investigations of geometric abstraction, balancing systematic structure with the warmth of individual mark-making.

Both artists have chosen concentration over expansion, intimacy over spectacle. For each, drawing functions as a method of inquiry. Constraint generates meaning. Reduction clarifies form. The viewer’s sustained attention changes what the work becomes.

The drawings gathered here are products of time. Decades of looking and making cohere in works that demand careful consideration. In an era that privileges speed and scale, these works offer an alternative: evidence of what happens when artists commit fully to the surface before them with rigor and care.