TO MARCH 26

Someone at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery must really like artists with the patience to create mind-numbingly detailed pen- and brushwork. Last year, it was four artists in the show “Concentrics,” who seemed to take their inspiration from the Spirograph. This year, it’s Andrea Way, a Washington-based artist who makes jaw-droppingly intricate designs that can take months to complete, using ink, paint, and paper. Most of her 14 works look different from one another: Vocalise (pictured) has the primary-color-infused kinetic energy of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie; Spring Moraine suggests a kaleidoscopic view of a surface of cracked ice; Round Robin suggests the shell of a tortoise; Crackle could be an aerial satellite view of a suburban subdivision; Spinning Light seems inspired by crossword-puzzle blocks; and Cantare suggests a micrograph of the surface of a microchip. (The one work with a transparently descriptive title, Eel River, really does suggest a school of eels swimming in a stream.) One can see how the artist’s calming, largely blue-green palette is influenced by her practice of Zen meditation; somewhat less obvious is her appreciation for fractals—designs whose shape is similar at various levels of magnification, such as in Nebular Hypothesis, which consists of circles made up of circles made up of circles. Way’s designs are so visually mesmerizing that, if her gallery gigs ever were to dry up, she’d probably make a mint in the high-end wrapping-paper business. The show is on view from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, to Saturday, March 26, at the Marsha Mateyka Gallery, 2012 R St. NW. Free. (202) 328-0088. (Louis Jacobson)