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A black and white illustration of a large, surreal creature resembling a textured rock or potato. It has various anatomical features, including a small head and a protruding organ that leaks a white fluid onto the ground.

Sabina Baumann's beautiful graphite sketches demand a closer look...

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Date
26 July 2012

Sabina Baumann has been making incredible work since before I was even born, embarking on her artistic career in 1987. Since then she’s mastered pretty much every medium out there, from elaborate sculptural processes and finessed ceramic work to scratchy crayon compositions and highly detailed pencil sketches. All of her creations have a surrealist flavour, transplanting iconic imagery and objects into ambiguous landscapes that combine to form highly anachronistic works, devoid of time and place.

At the centre of Sabina’s work is a preoccupation with the ubiquity of everyday stereotypes – the permeation of assigned roles and expectations into the collective consciousness, particularly those relating to sexuality and gender. By removing objects and images from their traditional place and heaping them into homogenous bundles or displaying them in fresh environments Sabina hopes to force us to appreciate people and objects by their own individual merits, rather than defaulting to our own staid world views.

Sabina’s new zine Finger aus Licht has just been released through Nieves and is definitely worth getting hold of if you like what you see here.

A pencil drawing of a surreal, distorted figure with multiple faces and limbs. One muscular arm is raised in a flex, while a thin, jointed leg extends outwards against a dark, textured background with a crescent moon.
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Sabina Baumann: Koerper, Geister, Landschaft

A pencil drawing of a large, smooth rock shaped like a handbag, complete with a stitched seam and a thin strap. To its right sits a small, patterned shoulder bag.
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Sabina Baumann: Untitled

A black and white illustration of a surreal landscape. A figure with a blurred face leans over a ledge, while a peace symbol is drawn on a brick wall behind them.
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Sabina Baumann: Alle, Alles, Eins

A surreal pencil drawing of a figure with elongated limbs and a large, cloud-like mass of hair. They lean over a series of intersecting beams, with one hand resting in a pool of black liquid.
Above

Sabina Baumann: 4bein

A pencil drawing of a distorted, melting figure lying on a thin grey line. The figure’s face is a dark, dripping shape with wide eyes, and a white hand is pressed against its side.
Above

Sabina Baumann: 4arm

A black and white illustration of two bombs resting on white rocks in a desolate landscape. In the distance, a dark city skyline sits under a heavy, clouded sky.
Above

Sabina Baumann: Little Boy Hopi

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About the Author

James Cartwright

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James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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