For this new exhibition, the Berlin-based artist activates the space with large, vividly pigmented paintings built from sprayed gradients, bold gestures, and fine brushwork.
Cornelia Baltes is a sponge, her images absorb the incidental. Based on memories rather than direct observation, she develops her paintings from brush sketches that are themselves painted from the memory of observational sketching. Works on paper provide a loose foundation for later work.
In many of the paintings, minutiae are scrutinized. Everything is fragmented and zoomed in on. Details emerge, and glimpses of things are subjected to forensic analysis. First impressions can be misleading. While the paintings appear strifeless, their extended gestation and reworking are, in fact, concealed under smooth layers of paint, while she repeatedly reworks the image until every line is flawless. Cornelia Baltes playfully blurs the lines between figuration and abstraction in compositions that never quite settle into an unambiguous motif. We may recognize some shapes, birds, or fragmented human anatomy frequently appearing with incongruous juxtapositions: smooth calligraphic marks and the occasionally hastily drawn oil pastel scrawl.
For more information, please visit the gallery website
