Judy Pfaff is a major contemporary artist working in installation, prints, drawing, and sculpture. Many of her drawings, prints, and sculptures use color in an unrestrained, painterly manner. Her work is abstract, but reminiscent of nature, cityscape, and molecular biology, particularly the shapes of neurons, dendrites, and synapses. Born in 1946, her voluminous body of work spans over four decades. Her sculptures remind me of Eva Hesse's or Robert Rauschenberg’s paintings only in that they push the boundaries between the two genres. She is much more whimsical and unapologetically sensual. Her particular variety of abstraction calls for more layering, more detail, and more complexity than many reality-based artists. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2004, an award that comes with a half million dollars of "no-strings attached" financial support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Judy Pfaff: Tracking the Cosmos is available through the University of Wisconsin's nonprofit Tandem Press, and is sure to get your synapses firing.