Continuing through July 15, 2017
Eric Beltz’ “Night Skies” are complex graphite drawings on Bristol. Some works are figurative, others abstract, but each is as dense as the night sky itself, dazzling in its patterns. Making use of a varied and lush grayscale, Beltz tackles a range of different topics from the heavens to origin myths, and does it without a drop of color. In “Night Sky, Waxing Moon,” Beltz renders a panoply of stars and planets, with the waxing moon a white, gibbous eye that tears our gaze from the center of the composition to the upper right.
“Night Sky, Cheshire Moon,” is a crescent illuminated against a darkened moon in the lower third of the work. The sky and the multitude of stars surrounding the moon is darker. “Night Sky, Palm” draws attention to a dense, beautifully stylized palm tree and several palm stumps in the foreground that is set against a kaleidoscopic sky. A thick crescent of moon floats above a band of clouds. Both otherworldly and intense, these are works to be savored.
