An occult presence pervades the sylvan scenery of Comet Eater, a solo show from Terra Keck. In these nightswept graphite drawings, trees shimmer and sway. Leaves levitate and glow. Stars or fireflies illuminate ornate paths. Among other sources, Keck hybridizes the ghostly impressions of Anna Atkins’s botanical cyanotypes and the mystic geometry of Hilma af Klint’s paintings.
This exhibition at Storage, a Tribeca gallery, operates on two scales: the small works, around 8×12 inches, hang along the left wall, and the larger drawings, starting at 22×30 inches, spread spaciously across the room’s other three sides. The smaller works hypnotically draw a slow, fixed gaze. Looking at these is like watching a flower bloom in slow motion. The larger pieces, mostly horizontal, dazzle from across the room like a breathtaking view.
The difference in size reflects the connections between the micro and macro within the work. The spectral cloverleaf bursting over treetops in Hologram Angel articulates an echo between the orbital patterns in the cosmos and those in the ground. Is there a scientific explanation to this mirroring of matter? Or do the links between earth and the heavens betray a higher order? Keck addresses these opposing questions with subtlety of material and process.
Each work is firstly an eraser drawing. Keck covers the paper in a layer of graphite, then intuits her image by erasing. Each stroke precisely focuses a new layer of brightness and definition. We can thus see the luminous forms as uncovered, rather than invented. Keck’s excavations into the graphite mineral ground highlight nature’s inherent divinity.
The artist applies the other materials with a dash of alchemy. The watercolor diffuses over the hydrophobic graphite, permeating the paper deeper in lighter areas. Keck’s light touch gives the imagery its softly colored aura. In a few places she introduces salt to the watercolor, letting the crystals contract the liquid hues into strange textures. In some places it appears like a cloud of gnats. In others, the pigments disperse into an atmospheric film, almost like a force field.
Atop these ethereal layers, Keck applies a few dots of acrylic paint. In colored pencil, small haloes of the light spectrum glow from behind the dots. Materially and figuratively, they hover above the billowing wilderness. In their precise geometric arrangements, these opaque pin pricks read as an alien presence to the shadowy flora.
Fundamentally, light is the subject of this work. How it travels, how it refracts, how it interacts with matter. Fundamentally, light also implies darkness, and the pair raises questions about perception, visibility, and what lies beyond both.
Just look at And Still I Marvel, where the large membrane-like ellipse erased into the landscape looks like a diagram of an eye receiving an image. Forking forms suggest galaxies, veins, or tree branches. A string of red acrylic dots pulses in the blackened forest. Are they the lights of fairies? Or are they red eyes, and more importantly, whose? Those of demons or those of animals with the adaptation to see in the dark?
Out of these dualities of the discernible and the unknown, scientists derive the label dark matter. This shorthand category denotes the large amount of the universe that’s detected via gravity and mass, but is impenetrable to light. Invisible, but present. Our language for the transcendent shares this circumlocution: Otherworldly, Extraterrestrial, Supernatural.
Keck seems to revel in the world around us as the gateway to the extraordinary, be it of this or another world. It bears significance that the artist does not maintain a sketchpad. Her small drawings, such as the handful on view in Comet Eater, are the vessel for her daily practice: they are artifacts of ideation and intuition. For this reason, they feel both like a channeled force, and a potent discovery. They embody the mystical phenomena that are inextricable from our material existence and no less magical.
All images courtesy of Storage
Comet Eater at Storage
August 8th – August 30th, 2025 Storage
52 Walker Street 4th Floor, Tribeca, New York 10013
About the writer: Queens based artist Will Kaplan combines different mediums, techniques, and text to probe boundaries. In addition to his studio practice, he reviews new music and documents the city’s art scene. Kaplan has had several solo shows in venues such as Bob’s Gallery in Bushwick and on Governors Island. His work has appeared at Spring/Break Art Fair, the New Art Dealers Alliance, and Pete’s Candy Store. He has written for Two Coats of Paint, Passing Notes and Foofaraw Press. @will.kaplan
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