Hanging out in the maternity unit

Cornelia Baltes is hanging out in the maternity unit of the Royal London Hospital: not because she is lingering over performing the usual event the unit’s visitors expect to perform, but because she is the artist who has created new public art to be displayed in the unit.

This is Cornelia’s first public art commission and, as is usual with the hospital, it has been dispensed by Vital Arts. Cornelia has taken over an entire corridor at The Royal London’s maternity unit to create an installation of roosting birds perching on the handrail. Cornelia’s works have been described as having an “an economy of means, like a cartoonist without text”. Made of wood, her birds bring a sense of warmth and natural materials into The Royal London Hospital. The artist incorporates the texture and pattern of the wood – either pine, cherry or walnut – into the pictorial image, and uses colour sparingly. Drawn with simple gestures, these large birds hover between abstraction and figuration.

The simplicity of the birds may be their downfall, in that they make the hall appear not dissimilar from the average infant school coat rack room. Had the birds been nesting, had they included the odd stork, the humour may have been nearer the surface.

However, even a simple bird is better than an empty wall (though it needs more dusting). Go look for yourselves. As loitering round the maternity unit could get you an unwelcome reputation, or worse, you may have to conceive and give birth in order to access this art. ELN takes no responsibility for any financial losses incurred if you do so.