Rafael Ferrer’s career defies categorization. He makes work ranging from Process Art installations to vibrant, figurative paintings and assemblages, grounding everything in the frenetic, generous logic of jazz drumming. In his words: “My earlier life as a musician created in my psyche a sense that what you do is dictated by the needs of the moment, all within a repertoire…It’s not about repetition, but it’s about the challenge of the moment.” With this improvisatory approach, he turned from making music and oil-on-canvas paintings to filling galleries and museums with ephemeral materials, like autumn leaves, in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. In the mid-‘70s, Ferrer returned to lasting materials and has been riffing off of his interests in art history, music, literature, the organic and the unfamiliar ever since.