XAVIER BAXTER

This exhibition marks a long-awaited comeback to JARILAGER Gallery Cologne. The exhibition title, Show me your soul, is both an imperative and the core of Baxter’s artistic credo.

Every day in Baxter’s studio is a quest for the Holy Grail of the perfect mark at the perfect moment. Brushes clean, ready for war. It begins with three full days of preparatory work: he coats the canvas with acrylic gel, ensuring that colours can be scraped off with ease during their feverish application (sometimes, the artist must be ready to charge and retreat in an instant). Another two days are devoted to mixing colours, mostly oils. He never uses pigment straight from the tube; his alchemy must remain a mystery. Then, in a burst of no more than ten or eleven hours, he attacks the canvas with a full arsenal – thick and thin lines, smashing strokes and delicate touches, scrapers, palette knives, hands, and brushes of every size. Speed is paramount; paint must be worked while still wet. Every stroke matters, every move is a decision. Baxter thrives on the unpredictability of wet paint, its risky interactions, the imperfections, the ‘grimy bits,’ the constant push and pull. Letting it dry, layering too carefully, would sterilise the work, strip it of its energy. And destruction, of course, is essential to his crusade: ‘If something comes out too nice, too beautiful – if it stops moving – then it has to be removed.’

Since the earliest cave paintings in southern France, figures have drawn us in, because they create emotional bonds, they tell stories. For Baxter, portraiture is key to understanding the cultural and emotional power of art. In his paintings, figures are hidden in plain sight. They are there, but need to be extracted, as if they were fossils embedded in the canvas – an idea rooted in Baxter’s childhood fascination with fossil hunting. His compositions are loosely inspired from the Old Masters (Rubens, Delacroix, Dürer, Caravaggio). Baxter zooms in on the postures of their secondary characters, isolating and distorting them, pushing their gestures further into abstraction. Initial outlines are drawn and redrawn until they dissolve into ‘tornados of pure movement.’ A giant with one eye and four feet might first appear in a corner, then vanish, then resurface as canvas marks build up. Once you see them, you cannot unsee them – muscular titans, heads tilted, limbs tangled and pulled inward, as if wrestling against the edges of the canvas.

Despite the energy behind Baxter’s strokes, these figures are not aggressive. There is something raw yet gentle about them, a presence that feels both spiritual and ancient. Particular attention is given to the heads. ‘They must feel honest,’ says Baxter. ‘Once they emerge, you let them be, you stay quiet. The challenge lies in capturing them in one-go, without betraying the power of their own expression.’

Baxter never settles. His practice is a constant test of courage, where every mark feels like the first. ‘For me, it is important for the work to show my soul and emotion, to exude vitality. I want my paintings to hit you hard from a distance.’ Leaving a mark, just like the search for uniqueness in one’s craft, is one of the most primal and enduring instincts, both for the artist and humankind. The equation keeps shifting, but painting will never die. For Baxter, this is more than a belief; it is an absolute mission.