Ross Blecknerââ¬â¢s immersive, large-scale paintings elicit a powerful hypnotic, dizzying effect. Whether pure abstraction of stripes or dots or more representational renderings of birds, flowers, and urns, Blecknerââ¬â¢s work recalls Op Art and the obsessive and mysterious luminosity of Yayoi Kusamaââ¬â¢s Polka-dot paintings. Smoothly layered on the canvas surface against a darker gray background, his multicolored volumetric circles or ââ¬Åcellsââ¬Â look like droplets of blood or molecules viewed under a microscope. Emerging as a prominent artist in New York during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Blecknerââ¬â¢s paintings, like memento mori, often suggest meditations on the body, health, disease, and especially AIDS-related death.