A chessboard divides space so neatly that warps or bends to its grid can induce dizziness or hazy little hallucinations. The black-and-white pattern is a recurring motif in Mitch Patrick’s exhibition “How to heal a rotten eye,” where it disconcertingly appears on a textile hanging limply in a corner, and as a subtly shifting background in a projection on the floor. Two monitors show digital animations where the perspective on a 3D rendering of a domestic interior moves as if a camera is floating on a tilted orbit. In Token Tandem Ticker (2016), lenses and other visual prosthetics dot the scene, and a round tabletop is inscribed with the ghost of a chessboard—irregular squiggles pressing against invisible square borders. Drawings from Patrick’s “Diagraphein” and “Glyphein” series line the walls of the gallery. With concatenated chambers and inscrutable, vowel-less margin notes rendered in ink on graph paper, these works recall maps for a role-playing game, or esoteric comic strips. They have no legend indicating up or down, so it’s left to the viewer to decide how to trace the meandering paths of jagged lines and organic bulges. On the graph paper, as in Patrick’s digital chessboards, the grid is an array of fissures from which the unreasonable or wondrous can emerge. —Brian Droitcour
Pictured: Video still from Mitch Patrick’s Token Tandem Ticker, 2016, 3D rendering and sound, 1 minute seamless loop. Courtesy Honey Ramka, Brooklyn.