Artists

Cornelia Baltes

Shop prints
Cornelia Baltes

Cornelia graduated from the MA Fine Art degree at the Slade. She previously studied communication design at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, Germany. The general source of Baltes’ work is the observation of daily life. She points out small things that touch her and creates works that combine simplicity with a sense of humour. Her work begins with quick sketches, or photographs. Elements of the composition are cut with block colours, disrupting the reality of the photograph and indicating the key forms and elements in the image. In her newest work Cornelia retains painterly concerns in combination with digital practice. In this way, she explores the relationship of composition, colour, gesture and materiality in fields that push the photographic to the painterly and the painterly to the spatial. The viewer catches an idea of beauty - hidden in simplicity - in a small gesture, in bright colour, through capturing the essence of an easy idea. The print for Jealous combines a digitally printed photographic image that is screenprinted with flattened forms and colour blocks, drawing out the geometry of the fence, and the fragility of the bird perched upon it. Cornelia was selected for the prestigious Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition in October 2011 and was a finalist in the John Moores Painting Prize (2010), a solo exhibtion is planned at Aspex gallery in Portsmouth. Cornelia’s work for the New Contemporaries exhibition has been highlighted in reviews by both the Guardian and the BBC. Cornelia’s Jealous Prize print edition is now held in the Victoria & Albert Museum Permanent Print Collection.

Upcoming exhibitions