Keltje Ferris. Exclamation Point

About

Her solo show with Mitchell-Innes & Nash in September 2015 has received high acclaim by critics and collectors alike and we are now very happy to be able to show for the very first time in Germany new works in combination with her recent body of work, the ‘body prints’.

Keltie Ferris is discussed in the US as one of the most prominent artists of sustainable impact in the field of painting. Brilliant and vibrating colors – applied in several layers by spray-guns or in syncopated patters by brushstrokes and spatula – evoke associations with utopia of futuristic cities, psychedelic screen savers or unfathomable pixelated jpgs. In her paintings she combines influences from pop, abstract expressionism as well as graffiti and street art with a wide vocabulary of gestures, references and marks to an idiosyncratic, distinctive formal language. Keltie Ferris creates works that are highly emotional and have a tremendous visual presence. Being open to subjective readings of her work in many directions, she nevertheless always revolves around questions addressing directly and very up to date the actual ‘being’ and possibilities of painting per se.

“I’ve accepted the limits of painting, its conventions, but I still see a glimmer of possibility for painting within this. Painting has been used to express such a range of emotional tenors – across a spectrum of sincerity and irony. Maybe I’m trying to find an expressivity that feels honest and appropriate for right now, not corny or jokey.” Keltie Ferris, in: Keltie Ferris in conversation with Isabelle Graw, 2015