SANDEEP MUKHERJEE

Sandeep Mukherjee's paintings are elegant yet visceral , with a whiff of the existential. Mukherjee paints with acrylic ink on Duralene, a transluscent paper more and more artist are employing - the Mylar of the twenty first century. Three variations comprised these dual Chinatown exhibition. The most prominient, expansive, and emblematic of the artist's work featured layered, emanating circular bands that evoke fingureprints, the cosmos, and (one imagines unintentionally) aboriginal art. Other paintings have striations etched in both sides of the Duralene, leaving carved geometries of abstracted peaks and valleys. Then there are what could be called "gravity paintings", in which the viscous flow of ink is transformed into weed-like flora, process and product merging seamlessly. This coalescing of effects reached a climatic level in what was arguably the star of the show(s).