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Otis Jones: What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries Right Now

With his persistent exploration of ovals and circles, Otis Jones rejects the tyranny of the rectangle in painting. Through six decades of showing his work, the Texas-born and Houston-based artist has developed a refined individual style. Rather than windows to peer through, an Otis Jones painting looks more like an oversize drumhead. His handmade supports sit off the wall like rounded wooden pallets, providing the rough-hewed platforms across which he stretches and staples his linen or canvas. Three of the works are painted in earthen tones, from adobe brick red-orange, in “Gray Band With One Black Circle,” to the clay-colored near pink of “Sort of Pink with Black and Dirty Circle” (both 2022). The fourth, in black, features a glowing cobalt blue circle painted in the upper-right of its face, opposite a camouflaged black circle to the left. Rather than the work of other painters, they call to mind other primal objects: earthen vessels of fired clay and hand-carved spoons in addition to drums.