It’s 9 am in Manhattan on a bustling Thursday. By this time, you’ve already commuted an hour and have been hit with every type of advertisement, political message, screen, and signage, in virtually any type of media form you can imagine. And it’s not just you. Your whole team, coworkers, managers, everyone will be overstimulated before you even start your workday. We need something to simplify the noise outside. Something that will help us transition into the next part of our day. Ted Collier’s paintings might just be the ticket.
Watch: Meet the Artist: Ted Collier in Contours.
Currently on view in our Contours show at Gallery 85, Ted Collier is a St. Louis-based artist, completely self-taught after a pivot from real estate in 2008. His three pieces are part of his circle series, a form that started showing up early for him. He traces it back to one of his earliest memories as a kid, watching his parents “dust off the LP, the vinyl record, and then put it on the record player, the needle would go on.” He remembers the scene as a whole, too. “my parents, you know, laughing and having cocktails with my dad smoking a cigar,” and that circle became a signal. “I knew when I saw that that shiny black circle, that LP record, that it was going to be a good time.”
That’s where the series really begins. “I started painting circles back in 2011, 2012, just to honor kind of that memory,” and he describes the form as something that evolved over time. That memory is still in the work today, even when the circle becomes pure abstraction. It’s a simple shape, but it carries a lot, which is part of why it holds up so well in a public space.
Now collected and shown widely, it makes sense his work has a real following. It’s the opposite of what you just walked through. He reduces things down. One form. Some color. A surface that changes as the light changes. It’s not trying to grab you like an ad. It’s just there, holding the space, doing its job.
Our latest exhibition at Gallery 85, located in the heart of Chelsea in the lobby of 85 Tenth Ave, Contours, is a great fit for Ted. He thinks in shape first and describes contours as the edge of a form and what’s inside it. “I think contour is outer contour and inner contour. A shape is a contour, but what’s inside the shape is also a contour.” The negative space of his circles plays just as important a role as the outer ring. He connects it to how we read and record the world around us, comparing things like topographic maps and elevation maps. And honestly, that’s a great way to describe his works. In person, they look simple, but take a second, third look and you’ll see the texture building. You see repeated forms but with variations, and within a few more visits, you’ll notice an entirely different work.
Blended Blues (2026) A restrained circle form in rich blue, built with acrylic and resin, so the surface catches light and shadow as the day shifts.
Hung on the main wall at Gallery 85, Blended Blues sits right near the center of the lineup, basically where your eye lands as soon as you enter. The rich blue is impossible to miss. One color family, one repeated form, and just enough layering in the brushwork that it doesn’t feel flat or overly perfect. In a lobby setting, this is the kind of work that actually makes sense. People are moving. People are waiting. People are checking their phones. People are heading to the elevator. This painting holds the wall without screaming for attention.
And it keeps doing something as the day moves along. “Texture really provides a lot of shadow,” Ted says, and you can see that play out as the lighting shifts over the course of the day.
Sun Worship (2026) and Google It (2026) Two bolder circle works that bring warmer, saturated color to the wall while still keeping the structure simple and the surface active in changing light.
Directly across from that are the other two works, Sun Worship and Google It. Totally different energy from Blended Blues. Warmer, more saturated, louder at first glance. But they’re still doing the same job. Clear structure. Simple shapes. A surface that holds up when you see it again and again. They give you something to lock onto for a second before you head upstairs and get swallowed by the rest of the day.
By the time you’ve made it through the 9 am rush, that’s a small gift. A lobby is more than an entryway. It’s the first place you should be able to shift gears. You’re not at your desk yet, but your brain is already trying to get there. That’s what this kind of artwork can do when it’s chosen well.
Because art in these spaces matters. Not just because it looks good, but because it changes the mood of the room and the people inside it. It supports the experience a brand is trying to create, for employees, for visitors, for anyone walking through the door. Ted’s work does that in a quiet way. It calms the space down, it holds up over time, and it gives you a second of simplicity before everything else starts competing for you again.
Written by David Dempsey, Director, Media Services & Content
