Alexander Gorlizki's paintings on paper dazzle the eye and tickle the mind. They are intricate beyond comprehension, their filament-thin lines congregating in dense, patterned fields. The works, most roughly the size of a sheet of notebook paper, spring from the traditions of Indian miniatures and manuscript illumination. They bear some Op Art and Pop Art flourishes, and indulge in a bit of surrealism for subversive effect.
The British-born Gorlizki, who lives in New York and maintains a studio of artisans in India, covers a lot of ground in his 40-plus paintings at Daniel Weinberg. Many of them are simply exquisite eye candy swirls, spirals and camouflage patterns meticulously painted in microscopic strokes with single-hair brushes. Others are representational teases, hybrids of the familiar and the fanciful. In "Eruption." for instance, a green stem springs from a crimson cone and grows into a loose lattice for oversize chrysanthemum-like blossoms.
