Michael Brennan reviews paintings by Eleanor Ray at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York.

“[Ray’s] paintings are small, mostly under ten inches in their longest dimension. They defiantly reside in keyhole territory, but she has a keen sense of scale. The art world routinely misuses this term to signify anything large, when in fact it concerns relative size. Ray has an uncanny aptitude for gauging it, and thus harmonizing a painting’s internal proportions with its physical dimensions and objecthood. Her paintings are exactly the size they need to be. If they were any larger, they would lose their surface tension and density, hence their tactile concentration of experience, and appear slack.”