The first comprehensive monograph on the paintings of Carrie Ann Baade. Showcasing approximately 100 paintings from 2002 to the present, this is a vivid exploration of Baade's investigation into surreal self-portraits. Introduction by curator Anna Wall. Art historian Susan Aberth provides insight into Baade's working method with collage. Fiction author Selena Chambers offers a guided tour of an imagined metaverse exhibition of Baade's works. Baade herself provides an enlightening view into her own creative process.

Carrie Ann Baade's oil paintings dialogue with the past through complex iconography and imagery quoted from Renaissance and Baroque canvases. She constructs layered narratives that resemble fantastical parables as her compositions interlace the strange beauty in the unexpected, the uncanny, the disregarded, and the unconventional. Her compositions, feminist and autobiographical, weave personal and classical symbology into narratives on mortality, sexuality, personal transformation, and the darker side of human nature.