Mysterious UFO in Motion, a large red abstract acrylic painting by Ritu Raj (acrylic on canvas, 6 × 6 ft)

Something happened when you saw this. What was it?

Ephemeral Atmosphere · 2023

Mysterious UFO in Motion

6 × 6 ft · Acrylic on canvas · 2023

Available · in the studio, Phoenix

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The unknown object — atmospheric painting holding the motion of something that doesn't owe you an explanation.

UFO (2023) is an encounter — a painting that hovers between recognition and mystery, between geometry and surrealism. This 72 x 72 inch mixed media on canvas work from the Ephemeral AtmosphereCollection channels wonder, play, and the language of the unknown.

A single circular form levitates in the upper third of the canvas — edged in glowing white, filled with deep midnight blues, cosmic silver, and alien green. Beneath it, loose marks ripple outward in pinks and ochres, like a field disturbed by its silent arrival. The composition feels at once balanced and unexplainable — deliberate yet hovering at the edge of absurd.

I created UFO while thinking about how we assign meaning to things we can’t understand. The unidentified isn’t always threatening. Sometimes it’s just unfamiliar. This painting is about that moment of first contact — not with aliens, but with something new inside ourselves.

The work resonates with the geometric curiosity of Terry Winters, whose forms float and multiply with suggestive science. Like Winters, I treat shape as event — a thing that happens, not just a thing that exists.

UFO invites the viewer to imagine, to question, to smile. It’s abstraction with a wink — not to diminish its presence, but to delight in its mystery.

As part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this piece is a visual joke and a sincere wonder at the same time. The unknown, after all, can be joyful.

Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.

The space it needs

Wall
At least 8 ft wide
Ceiling
9 ft or more
Light
Natural light transforms this work — morning and evening light read differently
Daylight
Lilac gray and dusty mauve are soft enough that direct desert sun can bleach the distinctions between them. Bright indirect light suits it best; the oxblood stays legible either way.

Lives best in

Living room 5/5

Mysterious UFO in Motion rewards a living room precisely because its six-foot oxblood arc and drifting lilac gray field need daily, unhurried looking to release their full sense of interior discovery.

Bedroom 4/5

The oxblood element carries just enough heat to feel alive rather than oppressive at the scale of a bedroom wall, and the lilac gray surround lets the eye settle into the painting's mood of hushed, joyful strangeness before sleep.

Details

Size
6 × 6 ft (W × H)
Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Year
2023
Collection
Ephemeral Atmosphere
Palette
Dusty Mauve · Lilac Gray · Charcoal Gray · Oxblood
Weight
About 45 lb
Ready
In the studio; delivery 6–10 weeks

Its ArtGram

ArtGram.Spur

  • Texture2
  • Form3
  • Colour range3
  • Palette4.4
  • Contrast2.6
  • Abstraction Quotient1
Read the full reading on ArtGraph →

Keywords

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