Bruce Sherman’s Eye-con. Photo: Courtesy Bruce Sherman/Eric Firestone Gallery.
In East Hampton, Eric Firestone Gallery opens a sprawling show of bold and elaborate works by 22 artists. Loosely themed around optimism, Alright Alright Alright is a showcase of pattern, material, and color that feels high-energy and offers a little jolt in the slowest part of summer. Kelsey Brookes’s kaleidoscopic sewn Indian tapestries and the pristine lines of automotive paint on maple wood by Jason Middlebrook are intricate and hypnotic. Among the more geometric, abstract works, notably the engrossing Ellsworth Ausby, there are some irreverent and intriguing characters, one-eyed with bubble-flip hair or with no face at all, the work of New York–based Bruce M. Sherman, who makes pieces out of ceramic, metal, and rock. Closes September 22.