Case Baumgarten graduated with a BFA from the lauded Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C. in 2018, and is currently a professional, emerging artist working in Charlotte, NC. Demonstrating talent from a young age, Case is the son of the late artist/ sculptor/ teacher/ genius Lee Baumgarten, mentor to thousands of burgeoning minds over the decades before his unexpected passing in 2019. Carrying the torch of both his mother and father’s creative proclivities, Case is an accomplished artist in his own right, winning First Place award at his senior thesis show at Corcoran, exhibiting at KunstHaus Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as internationally in Cologne and Berlin, Germany.Case’s current series presents the incessant search for lost loved ones. Through abstraction, figuration, and realism, the intention of each painting is to push the viewer to address all images of faith, with haunting emotional resonance for all those in search of loved ones lost.Artist Statement: Through emotional depiction, I create work that shares our global human likenesses. It was the passing of my father, which led me to integrate the topic of self relations and connectivity on account of profound anguish into my work. This series of figurative abstractions would be called “Feet in the Garden,” which references something unattainable - a never-ending vexatious search for deceased loved ones. The work abstracts images of faith. In doing so, I can engage with my audience’s experience in the struggles that come from deaths trials and tribulations. The pieces’ limited presentation of color suspends moments of familiarity in helplessness. In that which is left behind, in spaces vacated indefinitely, is a tumultuous yearn for direction. Astray in spiritual territories, these figures wander, reflecting our personal affair in the rivers current of trauma. I continuously create this work not only for my search for my passed father but for the many who are experiencing their endeavors for lost loved ones.