WILSHIRE CENTER

There’s nothing remotely improvisatory about Richard Overfield’s paintings--they’re plotted out by a mind like a steel trap. And yet there’s something soft and sweet about these large patchwork pictures that allude to American folk art, Agnes Martin and illuminated manuscripts. A systematic artist in the manner of Steve Reich, Overfield has developed his own private alphabet, and he weaves his vocabulary of hieroglyphs into ginger-breaded paintings that are as cherried-out as a piece of Shaker furniture. Breaking the canvas down into tiny squares, each of which is a minuscule painting in itself, Overfield frames the resulting maze with an elaborate border involving intricate striping and scrollwork.

Titled “Sea Level Chronicles,” this series is an homage to Canada’s Queen Charlotte Islands and is an outgrowth of the artist’s concern with the preservation of the area’s natural ecology. In a written statement Overfield comments that he hopes this work, which he sees as a juxtaposition of order and chaos, will “sharpen what we do with our eyes.” On that count it certainly succeeds. Examine one of these paintings close up and it seems as fanciful as a child’s set of decorated building blocks. Wiggly calligraphic marks threaten to leap out of squares that struggle to contain them. Step back a few feet, however, and those whimsical marks become components in elegant and formal geometric abstractions. Overman refers to these paintings as “visual murmurs”--a rather lovely and apt description. (Fiona Whitney Gallery, 962 N. La Brea Ave., to Feb. 22.)