Baila Litton

Baila Litton is an accomplished mixed media artist, who uses a dense layer technique to send messages and inform audiences of experiences outside of their own. She explores themes of the human condition, including sacrifice, memories, tragedy, power, and connection through various media that allows her to add color, texture, and depth to each story she tells.

Often collage is the foundation of her work. In a statement about her Everyman series, she explains, “Layered skins of paper, magazine art, paint, ink, my own drawings, text, thread, and other media are used to reflect events, their order and disorder, which occur throughout life. I start with a ghost image by tearing back the first layer and then continue to build up the layers tearing the paper to expose the underlining surface. Each image is made up of numerous ethnicities, genders and age demographics…My goal is to symbolize the identities we all share”.

Prior to her successful career in the art field, she studied painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Cleveland, Ohio, the Art Students League of New York in New York, New York, and obtained her bachelor’s degree in art education from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

Since then, she has exhibited work within a variety of solo shows, such as at Karamu Art Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio (1989), The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1993), Mandel Jewish Center in Cleveland, Ohio (1999), and Torre de Los Ingleses Exhibition Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2004).

Litton has also had a number of noteworthy group exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio (1987), The Cleveland Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio (2003), The Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio (2011), the National Association of Women Artists in New York, New York (2012), the NAWA Women’s Artist Coast to Coast West in Seattle Washington (2016), and in the City Artist at Work/City Artist at Rest, A retrospective 1997-2018 at Mansfield Art Center in Mansfield, Ohio (2018).

In addition to her wealth of exhibition opportunities over the years, Litton has also won the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Award in Visual Arts (2000, 2003), the Ohio Arts Council Professional Development Award (2001), the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Visual Arts (2006), and several more throughout her career.

Her works are within the private and public collections of organizations like British Petroleum America, Inc., the Cleveland Jewish Community Center in Cleveland, Ohio, the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio, and the Frist Union Inc. in New York, New York.