Monika Baer: Loose Change at Greene Naftali

Monika Baer’s large paintings are a stunning contradiction. The softness of the colour palette that makes up the background shouldn’t fit with the bark peeling away from the trees, but it does.

It’s not often that something so obviously dead, in the case of the tree trunks or disruptive with regards to the matches, is portrayed in such a fluffy and harmless way and I think that is why I loved each and every one of Baer’s paintings.

The pastel smoke disguises and soften the destruction that we assume the matches have caused, is it the trees that have been burnt?

With the 3D teardrops and the faces hidden in the paintings, Baer’s work immediately made me think about climate change and how humans are damaging nature. Is that planet Earth shedding a tear? I don’t know, but they’re extremely effective works of art, whatever they mean.

Born in Freiburg, Germany in 1964, Bear has had several shows in Germany and internationally. Baer was recently awarded the prestigious Hannah Höch prize in recognition of her lifetime of achievement in the arts.

Loose Change is on display at Greene Naftali gallery in New York until June 5th 2021.