Jacob El Hanani

The recent work of this New York-based artist who works with extraordinary painterly and calligraphic artistic detail.

Jacob El Hanani (b. 1947) was born in Casablanca, Morocco, and was raised in Israel. He produces highly intricate works through the painstaking repetition of miniscule marks, often Hebrew letters repeated thousands of times using ink on paper or canvas. He draws these images without magnification. The end result is a work of extraordinary detail that appears to be a pattern from a distance and speaks of the passage of time and the link between the microscopic and the infinite.

Inspired by Albrecht Dürer and minimalism, El Hanani practices the ancient art of micrography, in which tiny calligraphic letters are repeatedly drawn to create abstract designs. Jewish scribes used this technique to transcribe holy texts. El Hanani sees his work as part of this continuum and himself as a champion of the handmade.Adam Kirsch is an American poet and literary critic.