Bahr began to examine his own routines on a map and was inspired to turn it into art.
“One thing I do every day is drive my kids around. I take them to school, I pick them up from school, I take them to dance, I go to work.” Bahr said. “I started pulling up maps and tracing out the lines of my routes and started playing with those lines. It was kind of this nice discovery where these patterns and forms evolved.”
The end results are optical, abstract and pattern images that Bahr’s created for the past six years through serigraphy.
Serigraphy is a form of stencil printing that forces ink through a screen onto paper or canvas beneath. A screen is stretched over a frame, with areas of the screen blocked off with the stencil. Any part left exposed becomes the design.
Bahr has lived in Fort Worth for 35 years with his wife and two children. He received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting from TCU in 2001.
While in college, Bahr interned with the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum. After college, Bahr worked for the William Campbell gallery where he learned about framing art. He transitioned to working as an art preparator at the Amon Carter Museum, where he has been for the past 19 years. This job taught him about the importance of details, he said.
Before venturing into serigraphy, Bahr focused on photography and mixed media art pieces he categorized as Light and Form and Urban Landscapes. Bahr sees his early work as a foundation for his current art, he said.
Over the years, Bahr has been featured in numerous exhibitions in New York, Colorado and Texas. Most recently, in 2019, his solo exhibit, Day Trippin, was featured at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. In the same year, another exhibit, Daily Travels Through Time and Space, was featured at Fort Works Art.
“I look at these images and I ponder them,” Bahr said. “They’re having effects on my mind and you can get lost in them.”
In the accompanying video, Bahr sat down with the Fort Worth Report to dive deeper into his current art, how he makes each piece and how he looks at his pieces as a reflection of his life.
David Moreno is a spring fellow reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@forthworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
