Those who know Monika Baer’s early paintings might be struck momentarily speechless by the artist’s recent work. Her large new canvases feature eyes and mouths, sketched in pink, swimming on a white ground. Some of the eyes gaze at the viewer; others look up, glance to the side, or are closed. The lashes are finely rendered, the shadows around the eyelids painted with delicate precision. They lend the eyes a sculpted, even plastic appearance, allowing them to bulge almost monstrously from the canvas. In some of the pictures, the mouth is closed and only barely hinted at. When it is shown open,