A silhouette of a modest dining chair. A bulbous blue form. The nominal outline of a bird. Cornelia Baltes’ new paintings play games with images. The content of her work is the iconography of the everyday, yet objects remain alluded to rather than explicated. The abstract and anecdotal collide. Typically painted with an extreme economy, the paintings turn the diminutive into something more monumental by simplifying common motifs. A gigantic outline of a hand takes over the whole wall. The outline of a shaggy dog is implied by a few lines with two dots for eyes. Taken collectively, the component works form an abridged visual narrative, full of playful detail.
