The striking thing about Kiyoshi Nakagami’s paintings is not so much their sublimity, but the unexpected influence of Barnett Newman’s “zip” on their construction—“unexpected” because Nakagami’s ethereal waterfalls of gold paint on black grounds are, formally, miles away from Newman’s rigorously geometric Color Field abstractions. Yet it is not the drip’s form—the cleanly demarcated vertical line—in which Nakagami is interested. Rather, he is inspired by the way in which the zips recall “drips,” the way in which they seemingly cascade down the flat planes of Newman’s painting, drawn by gravity to the earth. (He also acknowledges a debt to Frederic Edwin Church’s Niagara, 1857.)

Accordingly, Nakagami “paints” by laying his acrylic on the canvas, moving it this way and that, and allowing gravity to move the pigment, which he has “enriched” with mica. The resultant works—filled with meticulous ripples and evoking cascades of light—bear no trace of the paintbrush. This absence of painterly gesture is also suggestive of Newman’s work, recalling the means by which he attempted to unencumber the experience of pure color. Likewise, for Nakagami, the removal of the maker’s hand is meant to facilitate meditative contemplation.

In all of the works in this show—which featured two grand diptychs, five large paintings, and five smaller paintings (all 2012), and coincided with an exhibition of related work at this gallery’s Paris branch—the paint appears suspended in space. There is no physical ground toward which it falls. It billows in a pitch-black and densely material void. (The artist has described the “molecularity” of space.) A profusion of meticulously drawn marks seem etched into the light and form a continuum of perceptions within the cosmos, sectioning the changing illumination into regions that subtly, intimately overlap one another. One of the most striking works is made on a square canvas. An explosion of light at the top center, seeming to emanate from nothing, sends wispy strands down to the bottom right of the painting.

Nakagami says that his works depict the big bang, insisting that they represent that cosmic moment in various explosive stages. He has also stated that his works convey a “moment of enlightenment.” One might interpret this assertion in gnostic terms, which would imply that the “heavy” darkness suggests lack of enlightenment, that the light and dark are in conflict, and that the individual is “saved” when he or she “knows” the light and with that becomes conscious of “God.” This may explain why Nakagami’s paintings are endlessly fascinating, like all art that seems miraculous because it dwells on miracles, with religious zeal.

—Donald Kuspit