The paintings by Kim Schuessler are joyously kooky. Figures that recall the flapper-era images by Al Held sport about in the sunshine and under umbrellas , strolling and dancing with abandon. Silly little cars stare at the viewer like jelly beans with eyes, and furniture assumes comfortable personalities. To the casual eyes, these works have a child-like quality that might tempt those with really gifted children to strip their refrigerators and hang offspring art throughout the house. Of course, Schuessler’s paintings are more than childish patterns. Along with sunny colors and coltish anatomical exaggerations, she employs scribbled words as information and as non-verbal decorative elements. Her work offers the delectable quality of a dessert concoction.

Kim Schuessler has developed a whimsical style that can be called kooky in the Al Held cartoon manner, a way of painting charming and slightly ditzy figures. One can sense the sap rising from the firmly rooted feet of her figures, their tree trunk-like figures often topped by umbrellas. The very awkwardness of these youthful doll-like figures suggests spring, the discovery of love and the innocent, lubberly testing of youthful passion. While there are several works that depict row houses and sets of chairs, the figure paintings dominate this witty and guileless excursion into the utterly cute.