The art of Judith Ellen Sanders could appear related to "pattern painting" associated with Holly Solomon Gallery in its heyday. However, while that type of painting demonstrated that the decorative qualities we admire in Byzantine, Islamic, and Celtic cultures can also enliven contemporary art, there is actually a great deal more going on in Sanders' work than immediately meets the eye.

For the vibrant forms that undulate throughout Sanders' compositions, bringing them brilliantly alive, are not merely decorative elements, but visual interpretations of the energy fields, cell formations, growth patterns, and underlying rhythms of biology and biochemistry, in which the artist holds a Master of Science degree.

"Now it is at the juncture of art and science where I wish to work," Sanders says, and the formal and chromatic discoveries that she makes at that vital intersection can be seen in her exhibition "Color Compass: Paintings on Canvas and Paper" at the Interchurch Center Treasure Room Gallery, 475 Riverside Drive, from March 1 through 31.

While one normally thinks of "hard-edged" painting as geometric rather than organically expressive, Sanders sets sinuously flowing shapes, painted meticulously in brilliant acrylic colors, afloat against pristine white backgrounds. Suggestive of stylized flames, floral forms, sunbeams, ocean waves, drifting clouds, and other natural phenomena, these graceful shapes appear constantly in a state of flux.

In some works, the hypnotically repetitive abstract rhythms of Sanders' resemble those of Eastern mandalas or tantric designs, as seen in the punningly titled "Calm Templation." Yet while this piece initially appears abstract, on closer examination it yields a metaphysical rainbow-colored vision of silhouetted birds soaring in formation from a central spectrum of delicate petals encircled by a skyblue wreath of clouds.

By contrast, other compositions, such as the acrylic on paper "Shells to Birds," employ intricate concentration of equally colorful smaller shapes to convey a sense of natural metamorphosis akin to exploration of visual perception and optical illusion in the etchings of M.C. Escher. Yet other compositions by Sanders, particularly large acrylics on canvas such as "Safe Passage" and "Latitude", both for their intricacy and their mind-expanding qualities suggest drug-free relatives of the psychedelic art of the 1960s. There are sparer acrylics on canvas, such as "Circles of Light," which, with their bold and playful combinations of circular and linear shapes seem more akin to certain oils by Jean Miro and gouaches by Alexander Calder.

None of which is to suggest Sanders is unduly influenced by any of these predecessors; quite the contrary, her work is highly original. However, its complexity and diversity can be related to many diverse tendencies and traditions, both Western and Eastern, which she has assimilated in the formulation of her own visual vocabulary and put to the service of her personal synthesis of science and aesthetics.

Indeed, along with numerous commercial and public galleries, this widely exhibited painter has had shows in specialized venues such as the Touro College of Health Sciences Atrium and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where the scientific inspiration of her paintings creates special interest. In the final analysis, however, it is for her purely aesthetic attributes that her work will surely endure.