The artist’s subjectivity is literally inseparable from the work in Keltie Ferris’s latest exhibition of body prints, “MARCH.” She made the twenty-eight prints in the show by dousing her body, usually clothed but sometimes nude, in oil and pressing it against paper, then covering it with pigment. While the layered pigment renders every crease and crevice of clothing and flesh, the colors also work to create vibrating relationships that define the mood of the figure they make. On one wall, fourteen prints hang in a grid, each one radiating an individual palette, often mirrored by playful titles. In Flaming, burning hues of yellow and red accentuate an orange body, and in twinKtwin a silver figure shimmers through a waxy shade of lemon. Ferris is primarily known for her large-scale abstract canvases made with oil and spray paint. While such works are not represented here, a few of the body prints feature areas marked with contrasting colors and circular shapes, creating a bridge between the two types of work. —Emma Faith Hill
Pictured: View of Keltie Ferris’s exhibition “MARCH,” 2017, at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York. Photo Mark Woods.