Cornelia Baltes’ exhibition title ‘Drunk Octopus wants to fight’ is borrowed from a recurring image that has circulated online for some time. The images show a common coat hook with two prongs for tentacles and two screws for eyes. The popular captioning changed the collective perception of the lowly coat hook forevermore.

In Cornelia’s works, simplified figurative signifiers are clues and red herrings which, in tandem with her accompanying titles, serve equally to allude and elude. They thrive in their own immediacy whilst achieving ambiguity. Her concise paintings refer to once spontaneous gestures recorded in a sketchbook, which she has reconsidered, refined, and invested onto her canvasses and coloured MDFs. 

Photography by Andy Keate. Courtesy the artist and Limoncello.
Contribution by Domenico de Chirico.

Cornelia Baltes - Drunk Octopus wants to fight
Limoncello, January 14 - February 20
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