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Baxter was born in 1981,<ref name="Anonymous2024">{{Cite web |title=2024 - Anonymous Was a Woman |url=https://www.anonymouswasawoman.org/2023-1 |website=] |date=2024 |access-date=December 29, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> and grew up in Philadelphia.<ref name="Paschal2020">{{Cite news |title=Becoming Isis Tha Saviour |url=https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/941449297/becoming-isis-tha-saviour |last=Paschal |first=Chiquita |work=] |date=December 3, 2020 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> As a child, Baxter recalls stealing ] from her cousin and cutting them into pieces for use in a collage.<ref name="Downing2024">{{Cite web |title='Paint Me a Road Out of Here' unpacks the power, limitations of art |url=https://matternews.org/culture/art/paint-me-a-road-out-of-here-unpacks-the-power-limitations-of-art/ |last=Downing |first=Andy |website=MatterNews.org |date=November 5, 2024 |access-date=December 27, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> She was raised by her mother, who was diagnosed with ].<ref name="Paschal2020" /> Baxter was born in 1981,<ref name="Anonymous2024">{{Cite web |title=2024 - Anonymous Was a Woman |url=https://www.anonymouswasawoman.org/2023-1 |website=] |date=2024 |access-date=December 29, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> and grew up in Philadelphia.<ref name="Paschal2020">{{Cite news |title=Becoming Isis Tha Saviour |url=https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/941449297/becoming-isis-tha-saviour |last=Paschal |first=Chiquita |work=] |date=December 3, 2020 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> As a child, Baxter recalls stealing ] from her cousin and cutting them into pieces for use in a collage.<ref name="Downing2024">{{Cite web |title='Paint Me a Road Out of Here' unpacks the power, limitations of art |url=https://matternews.org/culture/art/paint-me-a-road-out-of-here-unpacks-the-power-limitations-of-art/ |last=Downing |first=Andy |website=MatterNews.org |date=November 5, 2024 |access-date=December 27, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> She was raised by her mother, who was diagnosed with ].<ref name="Paschal2020" />


In the sixth grade, one of Baxter's artworks was submitted to a local contest by her art teacher. Baxter won, and her work was displayed in a window at a ], across the street from ].<ref name=Passerby24>. Passerby Magazine.</ref> By age 12, Baxter was a ].<ref name="Downing2024" /><ref name=Passerby24/> In the sixth grade, one of Baxter's artworks was submitted to a local contest by her art teacher. Baxter won, and her work was displayed in a window at a ], across the street from ].<ref name=Passerby24>. Passerby Magazine.</ref> At the age of 11, Baxter was arrested for ].<ref name=NPR120320/> By age 12, Baxter was a ],<ref name="Downing2024" /><ref name=Passerby24/> and diagnosed with ].<ref name=NPR120320/>


At the age of 13, Baxter attended Carson Valley School.<ref name=Passerby24/> At the age of 17, she enrolled at ] and dropped out after a few years.<ref name=Passerby24/> Later, she earned ] in art and design<ref name="Paschal2020" /> and behavioral health<ref name=RtofReturn/> from the ]. At the age of 13, Baxter attended Carson Valley School.<ref name=Passerby24/> At the age of 17, she is accepted to ] and majors in ].<ref name=NPR120320/> She dropped out after a few years,<ref name=Passerby24/>
and remained in ], where she is arrested for ] and ] and released due to a clerical error.<ref name=NPR120320/>


In 2007, Baxter was arrested and incarcerated at ]. She was nine months pregnant at the time.<ref name="Voeller2020">{{Cite news |title=Philly artists are in the vanguard at MoMA exhibit on art in the age of mass incarceration |url=https://www.inquirer.com/arts/moma-marking-time-incarceration-philly-artists-20201010.html |last=Voeller |first=Megan |newspaper=] |date=October 10, 2020 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Baxter endured 43 hours of labor ending in an emergency ], during which she was ] the entire time.<ref name="Voeller2020" /> She was released from prison in 2008.<ref name=Passerby24/> On February 2, 2024, Baxter received an executive pardon from ] and the ].<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio>Biography. . American Program Bureau, Inc.</ref> In December 2007, Baxter, at the time nine months pregnant,<ref name="Voeller2020">{{Cite news |title=Philly artists are in the vanguard at MoMA exhibit on art in the age of mass incarceration |url=https://www.inquirer.com/arts/moma-marking-time-incarceration-philly-artists-20201010.html |last=Voeller |first=Megan |newspaper=] |date=October 10, 2020 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> was arrested for an ] and initially incarcerated at ].<ref name=NPR120320/> During her first week at the prison, Baxter endured 43 hours of labor ending in an emergency ].<ref name=NPR120320/><ref name="Voeller2020" /> She was ] during the entire birthing process<ref name=NPR120320/><ref name="Voeller2020" /> and gave birth to a baby boy, Rasir.<ref name=NPR120320/> After four days, Rasir is taken away from Baxter and sent to live with his biological father.<ref name=NPR120320/>
She is formally charged with charged with possession, intent to deliver, delivery of cocaine and criminal use of a cellphone, and sentenced to a minimum of six months at Centre County Correctional Facility.<ref name=NPR120320/> In July 2008, Baxter was released from prison.<ref name=Passerby24/><ref name=NPR120320/> On February 2, 2024, she received an executive pardon from ] and the ].<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio>Biography. . American Program Bureau, Inc.</ref>

Baxter earned ] in art and design<ref name="Paschal2020" /> and behavioral health<ref name=RtofReturn/> from the ].


== Career == == Career ==
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From 2010 to 2017, Baxter focused on making music and a hip-hop artist career.<ref name=Passerby24/> From 2010 to 2017, Baxter focused on making music and a hip-hop artist career.<ref name=Passerby24/>

In 2020, Baxter's video installation was included in the "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration" exhibit at ].<ref>. MOMA.</ref><ref name=NPR120320>NPR podcast (December 3, 2020). . Podcast hosted by Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden with Chiquita Paschal.</ref>


In 2021, Baxter worked as an office manager for ], which is based in the ].<ref name=Passerby24/> That year, she released ''Consecration to Mary'', a photographic series based on a "sexually exploitative nude photographs of a young Black girl" taken by ], a serial sexual predator,<ref name=Passerby24/> in 1882.<ref name="Brooklyn2023">{{Cite web |title=Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: "Ain’t I a Woman" |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/mary_enoch_elizabeth_baxter_aint_i_a_woman |website=] |date=2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Baxter superimposes images of herself over the girl in the original photo, creating a new image where the victim is protected.<ref name="Adrian-Diaz2023">{{Cite magazine |title=With Her Lens and Hip Hop, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter Centers Black Feminism |url=https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/mary-enoch-elizabeth-baxter-centers-black-feminism/ |last=Adrian-Diaz |first=Jenna |magazine=] |date=February 10, 2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="ArtAfrica2023">{{Cite web |title=Ain't I a Woman: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at Brooklyn Museum, United States |url=https://artafricamagazine.org/aint-i-a-women-mary-enoch-elizabeth-baxter-at-brooklyn-museum-united-states/ |website=ArtAfricaMagazine.com |date=February 7, 2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Baxter herself has been critical of Eakins, writing an op-ed in the ] "decrying the city’s veneration of Eakins".<ref name="Sutton2021">{{Cite news |title=Hundreds call for reckoning with American artist Thomas Eakins’s troubling legacy |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/12/17/thomas-eakins-reckoning-philadelphia |last=Sutton |first=Benjamin |newspaper=] |date=December 17, 2021 |access-date=December 27, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> In 2021, Baxter worked as an office manager for ], which is based in the ].<ref name=Passerby24/> That year, she released ''Consecration to Mary'', a photographic series based on a "sexually exploitative nude photographs of a young Black girl" taken by ], a serial sexual predator,<ref name=Passerby24/> in 1882.<ref name="Brooklyn2023">{{Cite web |title=Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: "Ain’t I a Woman" |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/mary_enoch_elizabeth_baxter_aint_i_a_woman |website=] |date=2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Baxter superimposes images of herself over the girl in the original photo, creating a new image where the victim is protected.<ref name="Adrian-Diaz2023">{{Cite magazine |title=With Her Lens and Hip Hop, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter Centers Black Feminism |url=https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/mary-enoch-elizabeth-baxter-centers-black-feminism/ |last=Adrian-Diaz |first=Jenna |magazine=] |date=February 10, 2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="ArtAfrica2023">{{Cite web |title=Ain't I a Woman: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at Brooklyn Museum, United States |url=https://artafricamagazine.org/aint-i-a-women-mary-enoch-elizabeth-baxter-at-brooklyn-museum-united-states/ |website=ArtAfricaMagazine.com |date=February 7, 2023 |access-date=December 28, 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Baxter herself has been critical of Eakins, writing an op-ed in the ] "decrying the city’s veneration of Eakins".<ref name="Sutton2021">{{Cite news |title=Hundreds call for reckoning with American artist Thomas Eakins’s troubling legacy |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/12/17/thomas-eakins-reckoning-philadelphia |last=Sutton |first=Benjamin |newspaper=] |date=December 17, 2021 |access-date=December 27, 2024 |language=en}}</ref>
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== Awards and honors == == Awards and honors ==
* 2017: Soze Right of Return Fellowship<ref name=RtofReturn>. Right of Return USA Fellowship.</ref><ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/> * 2017: Soze Right of Return Fellowship<ref name=RtofReturn>. Right of Return USA Fellowship.</ref><ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/><ref name=NPR120320/>
* 2018: ] Reimagining Reentry Fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/> * 2018: ] Reimagining Reentry Fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/>
* 2019: ] Reimagining Reentry Fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/> * 2019: ] Reimagining Reentry Fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/><ref name=CorrinaMeh22/>
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* 2022: Pratt Forward fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/> * 2022: Pratt Forward fellow<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name=APBBio/>
* 2023: ]<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name="Anonymous2024" /><ref name=APBBio/> * 2023: ]<ref name=Frieze24/><ref name="Anonymous2024" /><ref name=APBBio/>
*2024: ] for her "socially conscious music, film, performance and visual art".<ref name="Anonymous2024" /> *2024: ] for her "socially conscious music, film, performance and visual art".<ref name="Anonymous2024" /><ref>Solomon, Tessa (November 20, 2024). . ''ARTNews''.</ref>


== References == == References ==

{{reflist}} {{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Browder, Anthony T. (1992). ''Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization: Exploding the Myths''. Institute of Karmic Guidance. ISBN: 092494403X.
* Fleetwood, Nicole R. (2020).


{{Authority control}} {{Authority control}}


Revision as of 02:35, 31 December 2024

American multimedia artist and activist
Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter
Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at the Montclair Film Festival in 2024
BornDecember 1981 (age 43)
Other namesIsis Tha Saviour
EducationCommunity College of Philadelphia; Penn State University
Occupation(s)Multimedia artist, activist, prison reformer
AwardsAnonymous Was A Woman Award (2024); Soros Justice Fellow (2023)

Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter is a multimedia artist, activist, prison reform advocate and speaker based in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating socially conscious visual art, film, and music, and raps under the stage name of Isis Tha Saviour.

Early life and education

Baxter was born in 1981, and grew up in Philadelphia. As a child, Baxter recalls stealing food stamps from her cousin and cutting them into pieces for use in a collage. She was raised by her mother, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In the sixth grade, one of Baxter's artworks was submitted to a local contest by her art teacher. Baxter won, and her work was displayed in a window at a Macy's department store, across the street from Philadelphia City Hall. At the age of 11, Baxter was arrested for motor vehicle theft. By age 12, Baxter was a ward of the state, and diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder.

At the age of 13, Baxter attended Carson Valley School. At the age of 17, she is accepted to Penn State University and majors in African American studies. She dropped out after a few years, and remained in Centre County, where she is arrested for burglary and receiving stolen property and released due to a clerical error.

In December 2007, Baxter, at the time nine months pregnant, was arrested for an outstanding warrant and initially incarcerated at Riverside Correctional Facility. During her first week at the prison, Baxter endured 43 hours of labor ending in an emergency C-section. She was shackled to her bed during the entire birthing process and gave birth to a baby boy, Rasir. After four days, Rasir is taken away from Baxter and sent to live with his biological father. She is formally charged with charged with possession, intent to deliver, delivery of cocaine and criminal use of a cellphone, and sentenced to a minimum of six months at Centre County Correctional Facility. In July 2008, Baxter was released from prison. On February 2, 2024, she received an executive pardon from Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Baxter earned associate degrees in art and design and behavioral health from the Community College of Philadelphia.

Career

Baxter raps under the stage name of Isis Tha Saviour, which she chose for Isis, the Egyptian goddess of motherhood.

From 2010 to 2017, Baxter focused on making music and a hip-hop artist career.

In 2020, Baxter's video installation was included in the "Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration" exhibit at MOMA PS1.

In 2021, Baxter worked as an office manager for Mural Arts Philadelphia, which is based in the Thomas Eakins House. That year, she released Consecration to Mary, a photographic series based on a "sexually exploitative nude photographs of a young Black girl" taken by Thomas Eakins, a serial sexual predator, in 1882. Baxter superimposes images of herself over the girl in the original photo, creating a new image where the victim is protected. Baxter herself has been critical of Eakins, writing an op-ed in the The Philadelphia Inquirer "decrying the city’s veneration of Eakins".

In 2023, Baxter was featured in a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, titled ""Ain't I a Woman" and released a song with the same name, a reference to the poem Ain't I a Woman? by abolitionist Sojourner Truth. The museum exhibit presented two works, a short film and a multi-part photographic piece. The song was an original hip-hop composition released under her performance name Isis Tha Saviour. Baxter drew upon her own experiences of being shackled during childbirth to "underscore the through-lines between mass incarceration and slavery". Author Nicole Fleetwood further writes: "Baxter links the experiences of contemporary black women in US prisons to the experiences of enslaved black women, especially regarding their reproductive labor and the disorganization of the black family by racial capitalism."

Baxter served as an executive producer and co-starred with Faith Ringgold in the documentary "Paint Me a Road Out of Here", which premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on June 14, 2024. The film interweaves the stories of Ringgold and Baxter, exploring their efforts to "make change for incarcerated and impoverished women."

Baxter is a co-founder of the Dignity Act Now Collective.

Exhibitions

Baxter's work has been exhibited at several venues and on television, including African American Museum in Philadelphia, Ben & Jerry’s Factory (Waterbury, Vermont), Brooklyn Museum, Brown University, Eastern State Penitentiary, Frieze Los Angeles, Frieze New York 2024, Martos Gallery (New York), MoMA PS1, National Museum of World Cultures, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Two Rivers Gallery (British Columbia, Canada), Yale Art Gallery, and on HBO’s The OG Experience at Studio 525 in Chelsea.

Awards and honors

  • 2017: Soze Right of Return Fellowship
  • 2018: Mural Arts Philadelphia Reimagining Reentry Fellow
  • 2019: Mural Arts Philadelphia Reimagining Reentry Fellow
  • 2019: Leeway Foundation Transformation award
  • 2021: Ed Trust Justice Fellow
  • 2021: SheaMoisture and GOOD MIRRORS Emerging Visionary grantee
  • 2021: Frieze Impact Prize award
  • 2022: Art for Justice grantee partner>
  • 2022: Artist2Artist Fellowship, Art Matters Foundation, New York
  • 2022: Corrina Mehiel Fellow, S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio
  • 2022: Pratt Forward fellow
  • 2023: Soros Justice Fellow
  • 2024: Anonymous Was A Woman Award for her "socially conscious music, film, performance and visual art".

References

  1. ^ Mary Baxter. Right of Return USA Fellowship.
  2. ^ Frieze (May 1-5, 2024). Frieze Reframe: Mary Baxter, Maria Gaspar and Gary Tyler.
  3. ^ "2024 - Anonymous Was a Woman". Anonymous Was A Woman Award. 2024. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  4. ^ Paschal, Chiquita (December 3, 2020). "Becoming Isis Tha Saviour". NPR. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  5. ^ Downing, Andy (November 5, 2024). "'Paint Me a Road Out of Here' unpacks the power, limitations of art". MatterNews.org. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  6. ^ Meet Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. Passerby Magazine.
  7. ^ NPR podcast (December 3, 2020). 'Prison To Prison Pipeline': Isis Tha Saviour. Podcast hosted by Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden with Chiquita Paschal.
  8. ^ Voeller, Megan (October 10, 2020). "Philly artists are in the vanguard at MoMA exhibit on art in the age of mass incarceration". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  9. ^ Biography. Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. American Program Bureau, Inc.
  10. Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Sep 17, 2020–Apr 5, 2021. MoMA PS1. MOMA.
  11. "Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: "Ain't I a Woman"". Brooklyn Museum. 2023. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  12. ^ Adrian-Diaz, Jenna (February 10, 2023). "With Her Lens and Hip Hop, Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter Centers Black Feminism". Surface. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  13. "Ain't I a Woman: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter at Brooklyn Museum, United States". ArtAfricaMagazine.com. February 7, 2023. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  14. Sutton, Benjamin (December 17, 2021). "Hundreds call for reckoning with American artist Thomas Eakins's troubling legacy". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  15. ^ Brooklyn Museum (January 20–August 13, 2023). Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: “Ain’t I a Woman”
  16. Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000891584. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  17. ^ Glasgow, Abigail (June 20, 2024). "A Rikers Island Painting Goes on a Powerful Journey in New Documentary Paint Me a Road Out of Here". Teen Vogue. Retrieved December 27, 2024.
  18. Fleetwood, Nicole R. (April 28, 2020). Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Harvard University Press. p. 45. ISBN 9780674919228. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  19. Amaya, Sofia Escobar; Greene, Emma (October 2024). "Film Response: Faith Ringgold and Paint Me a Road Out of Here". Colby College. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
  20. Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. Miami MoCAAD.
  21. ^ Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter: 2022 CORRINA MEHIEL FELLOW. S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio.
  22. "Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter". leeway.org. 2019. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  23. Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. ArtMatters Foundation.
  24. Solomon, Tessa (November 20, 2024). Anonymous Was A Woman Reveals 2024 Grantees in Milestone Year for the Celebrated Program. ARTNews.

Further reading

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