Nathan Ritterpusch’s recent works are intriguing non-linear narratives that address themes both paradoxically intimate and universal. In these paintings the artist employs ecstatic colors and patterns as he portrays characters desperately struggling in the extremity of desire where pursuit and fulfillment have left them in flux between reality and fantasy. The recent paintings are executed across planes that are sometimes fragmentary and abstract and at other times grounded and shrewdly subtle.

The images in Nathan Ritterpusch’s earlier series of paintings “Old Enough to be My Mother” are based on photos found in men’s magazines of the 50’s and 60’s. In that series Ritterpusch employed a highly individual “smudging” technique that provides an element of melancholy as the beauty of the women portrayed seems to drip away from them. These powerful portraits pulsate with seduction and sadness.