In the seemingly prosaic realm of a Manhattan apartment corner, Henry Orlik uncovers a gateway to the infinite. His study, New York Interior III (1980-1985), brought to life with coloured crayons on paper, metamorphoses the intimate domestic space into a sophisticated laboratory for probing the threshold between material reality and metaphysical awareness. This drawing transcends interior documentation to become a phenomenological exploration of how consciousness navigates the boundaries between visible and invisible worlds, inspiring us with its transformative power.

The composition presents what Maurice Merleau-Ponty would recognise as "the flesh of the world", that primordial tissue where perceiver and perceived are intertwined. Cubic building blocks, arranged with deliberate care across a stepped surface, occupy a space that is both ambiguous and transitional, straddling the territory between children's toys and cosmological models. These forms suggest the fundamental particles that quantum physics reveals as the building blocks of reality, yet their domestic placement transforms abstract scientific theory into lived experience. Each block exists simultaneously as a material object and a conceptual placeholder, embodying Orlik's belief that consciousness constructs reality through observation.

The coloured Venetian blinds in the upper right, rendered in bands of pink, yellow, green, and blue, function as more than a window covering. These horizontal stripes operate as a ‘chromatic filter’, mediating between Manhattan's harsh metropolitan energy and domestic sanctuary. The blinds suggest consciousness itself operates through similar filtering mechanisms, selectively admitting and transforming external stimuli according to internal necessity. Light passing through these coloured bands becomes alchemically transformed, creating prismatic conditions necessary for metaphysical investigation.

Most haunting is the empty chair occupying the right side of the composition. This vacant seat embodies what Gaston Bachelard recognised as 'the poetics of space', the way domestic objects accumulate psychic residue through human inhabitation. The chair's emptiness becomes more present than the presence itself, suggesting the invisible body of consciousness that continues to inhabit domestic space even in physical absence. This phantom presence transforms the interior from a geographical location into a 'lived space', a territory shaped by memory, anticipation, and ongoing dialogue between the self and the environment. The empty chair, as a symbol of absence and potentiality, invites the viewer to contemplate the space and the consciousness that permeates it.

The burgundy decorative pattern in the foreground creates a rhythmic foundation that grounds the composition in domestic comfort while suggesting the interconnected energy patterns Orlik believed animated all matter. These undulating forms recall the ‘excitation brushstrokes’ of his larger canvases, revealing how quantum principles operate at the intimate scale of daily experience.

The choice of coloured crayons is pivotal to the work's phenomenological investigation. Unlike the authoritative finish of oil or acrylic, the waxy texture of crayon fosters a 'haptic empathy', a tactile relationship between medium and surface that mirrors the intimate relationship between consciousness and the domestic environment. Each mark retains a physical trace of the artist's gesture, creating a surface that invites touch. This material quality transforms viewing into virtual inhabitation, fostering a sense of connection and engagement in the observers.

The drawing's modest scale demands proximity, creating conditions for ‘contemplative intimacy’. Unlike Orlik's monumental urban canvases, which command attention through scale, this work requires viewers to enter its space through close observation. This scalar relationship reproduces the conditions of domestic life, where meaning emerges through sustained attention to seemingly insignificant details rather than dramatic revelation.

Within the phenomenological tradition, the domestic interior represents what Martin Heidegger termed ‘dwelling’, the fundamental mode of being in the world preceding all philosophical abstraction. For Heidegger, authentic dwelling requires ‘thinking building’, recognising that physical structures serve primarily as containers for consciousness rather than mere material arrangements. Orlik's interior embodies this understanding, presenting domestic space as a carefully constructed environment for contemplative practice.

The stepped arrangement of building blocks creates 'sacred geometry' within quotidian space. These cubic forms, reminiscent of children's toys and architectural models, suggest the mathematical principles underlying material reality while remaining grounded in the playful realm of domestic life. The progression from lower to higher levels implies ascent, perhaps toward enlightenment, yet this spiritual journey occurs entirely within ordinary living space. Orlik's use of 'sacred geometry' in this context suggests that the principles governing the universe are not distant or abstract, but are present and accessible in our everyday lives, even in the most mundane corners of our homes.

The work's relationship to time proves sophisticated. Unlike the dynamic movement suggested in Orlik's urban scenes, this interior exists in what Henri Bergson might recognise as 'pure duration', time experienced as a qualitative flow rather than a quantitative measurement. The empty chair suggests past inhabitation and future possibility, while arranged blocks imply ongoing creative activity. This temporal complexity transforms the domestic interior into a meditation on consciousness itself, existing simultaneously across multiple temporal dimensions.

Orlik's use of 'pure duration' in this context suggests that time, like space, is not a neutral backdrop to our lives, but is an active participant in the construction of our experiences and our understanding of reality.

The drawing serves as Orlik's visual equivalent to phenomenological reduction, a philosophical method that involves bracketing questions of objective existence to focus on the structures of experience. By isolating a corner of domestic space from its metropolitan context, Orlik creates conditions for investigating how consciousness constructs meaning through interaction with the immediate environment. The resulting image reveals not what the apartment corner "actually" looks like but how awareness operates in creating the experience of place.

The coloured blinds deserve particular attention as embodiments of Orlik's quantum philosophy are made visible. Each horizontal band operates as a discrete energy level while participating in the larger spectrum of filtered illumination. This visual metaphor suggests that consciousness operates through similar principles, discrete states of awareness combining to create a continuous spectrum of experience.

The work's survival during Orlik's precarious years in Manhattan adds biographical resonance to its philosophical investigations. Created when the artist described himself as "really fighting" against the overwhelming intensity of the metropolitan environment, this intimate interior study represents a refuge where contemplative and calming practice remained possible. In this quiet space, the single red rose and green leaf, here seemingly without vessel, hover in space and stand as the embodiment of pure contemplation. They are the haunting focus of meditation and a suggestive palimpsest of remembered moments, - perhaps a romantic encounter, perhaps an imaginary daydream, - and the quintessence of hope or longing for connection with another living entity.

New York Interior III ultimately reveals the domestic sphere as humanity's primary laboratory for investigating the relationship between consciousness and reality. Through his quantum-influenced understanding of matter and energy, Orlik transforms a simple apartment corner into a sophisticated instrument for exploring what he termed ‘the invisible but more important inner life’.

In our current moment of digital displacement, Orlik's vision assumes renewed urgency. His demonstration that ordinary domestic space contains infinite depth challenges assumptions that meaning must be sought in exotic locations. The coloured crayon medium, with its childhood associations, reminds us that wonder operates as our most sophisticated philosophical instrument. Through patient observation of building blocks, empty chairs, and filtered light, Orlik reveals consciousness itself as our primary creative medium, the instrument through which we continuously construct the reality we inhabit.