Lutz Bacher caught my attention when I was recently reading about her Zurich retrospective, Snow. I was interested in the way she uses simplistic elements - found objects, magazine clippings and childlike drawing - to explore much more complex issues of sexuality, identity and community. Bacher is playful in a Duchamp-esque sense, composing household objects to amuse and provoke and never fully revealing the facts (the press release for her 2008 exhibition at Ratio 3 in San Francisco consisted of a recipe for butterscotch pudding). Yet Bacher is also brave in her creative independence and personal exposure - My Feelings consists of words uttered before she underwent a surgical procedure. Although there is a certain ambiguity about her work, a sense of mystery constructed by the artist (her website contains simply page after page of unrelated photographs of various urban and domestic curiosities), Bacher can also be very direct and emotionally raw (her Sex with Strangers she combines pornographic imagery with antiquated psychological statements). In the next few weeks I would like to create some larger sculptural/assemblage work, citing Bacher as a key influence - in work such as that seen in her exhibition at Portikus, Frankfurt, she creates large, toy-like figures, exploring themes of social and personal relationships with an aesthetic of primitive pop fantasy.