Kenosha Public Museum Exhibit: Reginald Baylor: Mason Dixon Lines

Contemporary artist Reginald Baylor of Milwaukee will present a new exhibit: Mason Dixon Lines at the Kenosha Public Museum's Paula Freck Touhey Gallery. Acrylic on canvas is Reginald Baylor's usual medium of choice, working with large-scale figures and landscapes in bold and complex colors in a Pop Art style. His new mixed media works explore many different materials that remind him of his Midwest blue collar, manufacturing upbringing. Fabrics, leather, wood, and metal are translated into Reginald's primary focus of line, shape, and color. He uses various digital, mechanical, and manufacturing processes to create his artwork.

Baylor was born November 1966 in Milwaukee, Wis. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (1984-88) where he was a sculpture major but was encouraged to pursue commercial art and art education. Because of his fascination with a Philosophy class, he became infatuated with the line and its theories and function.

After college, Baylor relocated to Southern California where he was married to his wife, Jill (1991) and worked for the Laguna Beach Art Museum and Newport Beach Art Museum (1991-93). At this point, he set aside sculpting due to lack of space and resources and began to paint with acrylics. The experiences in the museum setting reinvigorated Baylor's pursuit of the process of fine art. The pivotal point in this path was a California minimalist artist who suggested that Baylor use masking tape as a tool for decisively executing the linear quality in his work.

Baylor received representation by his current private art dealer, Suzanne Zada of Beverly Hills, CA in 1995, the same year he and his wife and two sons moved to Chicago. While living in Chicago, he began a career as an owner operator for Mason Dixon Trucking and continuously worked towards mastering his aesthetics, craftsmanship and straight edge techniques with his acrylic on canvas paintings.

Baylor returned to the Milwaukee area with his family in 1998 where he began exhibiting in numerous galleries and museums in Milwaukee. He added a studio manager in 2005 in order to execute and further expand the complexities required in his process. In 2007 Baylor was a recipient of a grant that allowed him to stay for one month at an artist residency at Ragdale in Lake Forest, Ill. As a direct result of the residency, he decided to stop driving a truck and pursue a full time career in fine art. Baylor is currently working from his studio in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward. His open studio concept invites clients and the public into the space to interact and experience for themselves, Reginald Baylor Studio. In 2009 he began working as Artist in Residence at the Pfister Hotel, Milwaukee.

General admission is free. Program & group fees may apply.