While the meaning behind his works might hover in ambiguity, Baker is an artist rooted in the rural Yorkshire of his childhood and in the tradition of British painting. This romantic vision - which references artists such as Constable and Hockney - is coupled with a raw energy that sees Baker cut, drill and even shoot the canvas with a rifle. The critic Edward Lucie-Smith has described Baker’s paintings as having, “something more, a kind of romantic melancholy that is very British. And sometimes the melancholy turns out to have sharp claws. The pictures make you sit up and examine your conscience.”