Sara Crisp’s “New Work” at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery is a large show of abstract encaustic paintings that are generally square and feature center-oriented shapes or clusters of forms. The forms themselves lean heavily on sacred geometry, patterns and the organic logic of flowers. Actual flowers – roses, tulips, delphiniums, daisies and poppies – are incorporated into the work, along with a few fauna artifacts, like beetles, snake bones and bees.

The visual logic of Crisp’s paintings follows geometrical abstraction viewers may associate with mandalas, Celtic patterns, Arabic design, tantric art, Christian stained-glass and illuminated manuscript decoration, among other types. In them, the various fractal and flower forms include the “flower of life,” a many-petaled hexagonal figure comprising evenly spaced, overlapping circles, or the vesica piscis, literally the “fish bladder,” an almond shape made when two circles overlap and the basis of the Christian fish symbol.

“New Work” is unusual: The body of work, taken as a whole, has a very different effect than any of the individual paintings on their own. By incorporating Eastern and Western symbols and logic, Crisp throws the door open. We can see each work through whichever lens is most comfortable to us, but looking at the exhibition as a whole we cannot help but notice the many different systems that inspire her work – natural, mathematical, cultural and religious.

One of the most distinct works is “Untitled (Beetle Spiral),” not because of the beetles arranged in the center of the 25-inch square panel, but because the work features a large spiral that implies a centrifugal force radiating outward. This aesthetic force moves in the opposite direction from the other works, which generally (but not always) follow a centripetal, or inward moving, logic.

This idea of motion into or from centered patterns is important for Western art, but largely in relation to single-point perspective and optics. Western thinking about decoration, on the other hand, is flat and static. However, the push or pull of centering imagery is a particularly common and powerful tool for mystical meditation in many non-Western traditions – which in some ways explains the seemingly out-of-left-field inclination to mysticism in American abstraction.

Perspective, after all, is a system of observation that holds the viewer in a very specific – and static – place. Looking at a group of abstract forms that don’t act like a photograph is a more active experience than the passive observation of a scene rendered by someone else (or by a camera). This is subtle and sometimes difficult to imagine for people who don’t have a lot of experience with abstract painting, but our brains are programmed to respond to the sensations of distance and motion in addition to our sense of where we are at any given moment.

Crisp works with these sensations directly. Her painting is not representational, despite the references, but experiential. She is not painting about something somewhere else in time and place, but rather she is creating a here-and-now experience for the viewer.

In Crisp’s work we recognize forms of nature: shells, flowers, spirals, fractals. We see patterns of growth and the seeds of life – quite literally, in fact (and a few lotus roots as well). After all of the complex patterns and decorative systems, I had to laugh when I encountered a simple panel in which Crisp had embedded an opened acorn and the sprouting oak that came out of it, and which Crisp let reach up well out of the panel.

The fragility of the dessicated baby tree touches another rich theme in “New Work.” Crisp includes dried flowers, butterfly wings or other organic bits in her work. To protect them, sometimes she nails shaped sheets of mica over the fragile elements. Life is a powerful agent, she projects, despite its apparent fragility.

The largest works present an indulgent sensuality, the experience of which, when I visited, was amplified by a powerfully fragrant vase of tiger lilies. Encaustic, after all, is mostly beeswax and so it has its own honey musk aroma. This sense is furthered by Crisp’s propensity for honey colors, like golden ambers and creamy pink whites.

“Rose Window” is a 3-foot square panel that directly references forms of Gothic stained glass window rendered in a honey palette. While cathedral windows have their own complex history of sacred geometries, the form comes to us on our own terms – whether we have personal and religiously engaged experiences with them or not.

“Untitled (Delphiniums and Pattern)” is a tile-sized panel (10 by 10 inches). What makes this piece extraordinary within the context of the exhibition is that it inverts our expectation of geometrical form. It is a beautiful painting that asserts itself by placing a diamond shape off-center from the overlapping-circles grid particularly common in Islamic art.

The asymmetrical placement may seem to be out of character for the show, but it illustrates how aware of her works the artist is: Placed in the center, the painting would simply look like an Arabic tile. The shift leads us to reconsider, and we realize the delphiniums are represented in the blue ink that colors the piece. A few years ago, work that relies on this kind of arcane knowledge might have annoyed me. Now, anyone who looks for the delphiniums and doesn’t see them can look up “delphinium” on their smartphone and learn that its flowers are mixed with alum to create a blue ink.

“New Work” is a rare treat – smart, beautiful, interesting and easy to enjoy. It’s up to the viewer to see it as an example of calm intelligence, a gathering of exciting objects or something else entirely.

Freelance writer Daniel Kany is an art historian who lives in Cumberland. He can be contacted at:

dankany@gmail.com