Brooklyn-based painter Keltie Ferris is known for abstract paintings that recall the city grid, so you’d think she’d relish LA’s road systems on her recent residency there. Instead, she turns her eye skyward in pieces like ‘oRiOn,’ a canvas that hints at a celestial hunter, outlined in vivid color and decorated in a shower of shooting stars. (At Chelsea’s Mitchell-Innes and Nash through Oct 17th).
Keltie Ferris, oRiOn, acrylic and oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches, 2015.
Using maps of the night sky as background, New York artist Jessica Rankin adds phrases and words from her own thoughts and found texts in a fragmented, poetic mediation on cosmic forces and personal experience. (At Salon94 Freemans through Dec 21st).
Jessica Rankin, The Ancient Seat of Indescribable You, graphite, ink and collage on paper, 42 x 42 inches, 2014.
Working by the light of a lamp or with no artificial light at all, Milwaukee-based artist John Riepenhoff has created his night sky paintings in the city and country. Explaining that he can’t see much of what he’s doing while he’s painting, each is a surprise in the morning. (At Marlborough Gallery, Lower East Side through Feb 9th.)
John Riepenhoff, Plein Air (Isle of Eigg), acrylic on canvas, 2013.
