The fantasy world often serves as an escape from reality, its limitations, and its many social, economic, and corporeal restrictions. Reality, in turn, is often desired amidst the delusions of the fantastic. However, the two are not always separate. The artist pulls from a diverse set of references: from Shiva Lingam paintings that are seen as symbols of energy, then to the abstract physicality of Elizabeth Murray's work, to the delicate and decorative from Florine Stettheimer and the Early American Modernist Visionary works of Forrest Bess – Baras's works are physical, archaeological and gritty. Her work takes abstraction to its most tactile moment and then folds in cryptic codes on the surface of the paintings that the viewer is invited to decode.