{"id":180900,"date":"2026-03-31T15:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/180900\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:14:08","slug":"a-one-man-psychedelic-art-empire-thrives-in-brooklyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/180900\/","title":{"rendered":"A one-man psychedelic art empire thrives in Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unlikely tourist destination has sprouted in Brooklyn: Psychedelic painter Alex Aliume\u2019s East Williamsburg home studio.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old artist estimates he\u2019s hosted thousands of visitors since building out his Seigel Street live-work loft gallery in 2023. Many are fans of his work \u2014 colorful, glow-in-the-dark canvases created using a proprietary phosphorus-based technique that, for some (including one Wired reporter<\/a>), elicits quite a spiritual experience. Others come upon his Instagram<\/a> or TikTok<\/a>, where he\u2019s collectively accumulated more than 350,000 followers, or his website<\/a>, where tickets starting are available for tours of his studio-cum-exhibition-space-cum-living-room.<\/p>\n

After stepping through a cramped new construction lobby, visitors round the corner into a large, high-ceilinged room split by a movable mirror wall covered in Aliume\u2019s kinetic art pieces. The non-moving wall space is dedicated to his non-moving work: trippy, brightly saturated depictions of cats, Hindu deities and optical-illusion-like patterns galore. Even to the uninitiated, it\u2019s pretty obvious the canvases are probably going to glow, or something, when the lights cut. And Aliume will most certainly cut the lights, provide you with 3D glasses and share his story, his inspirations, his obstacles and his accomplishments, while leaving the actual technicalities of how he gives these solid canvases so many different layers of light-activated incarnations something of a mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI receive calls all the time. ‘Hey, we are around, we would love to visit,’\u201d said Aliume, a Ukrainian refugee who immigrated to New York in 2014 and started painting in 2017.<\/p>\n

After coming upon Aliume\u2019s gallery online, one woman even decided to throw her birthday party there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just found it. I didn\u2019t have a vision in my head to go have my birthday at an art gallery,\u201d said Lauren Katzen, who was perusing the internet for somewhere \u201cout-of-the-box and memorable\u201d to host her 35th this past November when she randomly came upon Aliume\u2019s space.<\/p>\n

Her friends still talk about the party with reverence. \u201cIt was definitely one of the most unforgettable things that I\u2019ll probably ever do in my life,\u201d Katzen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of like a hidden gem,\u201d said Carolina Franccesca<\/a>, a creative consultant and Aliume\u2019s live-in partner. The pair met at a business conference for those in the psychedelics industry and started dating after Franccesca toured one of Aliume\u2019s previous studio-gallery spaces (he\u2019s had four to date). \u201c\u200aI think the most common [reaction] is that, \u2018Oh, I’ve never seen anything like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the dedication of Aliume\u2019s growing following to schlep out far from Manhattan\u2019s gallery districts to a notably dreary residential side street represents an impressive level of enthusiasm in an age of particular attention deficit \u2014 and when it\u2019s always been fairly true that, as Franccessca puts it, \u201cit\u2019s hard to just sit with an art piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

But sit with Aliume\u2019s art fans do, generally while Aliume and Franccessca hospitably stand by, emanating warmth and a reciprocal appreciation for those who appreciate the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I went to the gallery I stood in front of the art for almost like three hours,\u201d said Jeffrey Zhang, a buyer of Aliume\u2019s worker.<\/p>\n

To some, the colorful creations may look like Alex Grey<\/a> imitations or dorm-room-appropriate black-light art, but the sense of awe others get from observing them is undeniable. And, once displayed, the multidimensional light chemistry aspect is quite mind boggling to anyone without a graduate STEM degree.<\/p>\n

For Blue Man Group cofounder Chris Wink, the paintings give a \u201csense of, like, a portal. A connection to the outer world.\u201d Wink loves that most of Aliume\u2019s work is currently all together in the Seigel Street space, \u201clike a museum retrospective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Seigel Street space, however, will soon be no more: Aliume feels he\u2019s ready for a more formal gallery, one where he doesn\u2019t also live. Also, the lease was expiring and the rent was going up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are conceptualizing it as an \u2018experiential night gallery,\u2019\u201d Aliume said of the new space for which he has freshly signed a contract, at 41 Porter Ave. in Bushwick \u2014 a much more central location than his current one. He plans to paint the ceiling black and is exploring the idea of having a self-guided \u201csound journey\u201d tour available. He\u2019s excited at the prospect of having set hours and hopes to open in mid-May.<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll surely be far from Manhattan\u2019s frequently stuffy gallery scene, not just in distance but also accessibility and crowd with its offering of an \u201cimmersive\u201d modern art experience that is not just highly Instagrammable but almost screen-like itself: A glowing display that contains multitudes but, unlike technology, does not purport to have any answers beyond a cosmic whisper for those open to hearing it.<\/p>\n