WILSHIRE CENTER

In his last solo exhibit in 1978, Jim DeFrance exhibited large, monochromatic canvases divided into interwoven diagonal grids. Fusing minimalist formal strategies with the vibrant color theory of Josef Albers, DeFrance managed to be simultaneously moody and unambiguous, sensuous and coolly efficient. He’s loosened up considerably since then, and if his current exhibit is any indication, he is struggling to hold onto his modernist roots.

Geometry is still predominant, largely by virtue of DeFrance’s diptych format and the rectangular color fields that anchor each panel. Yet there are subversive intrusions that suggest an imminent explosion of form, as if DeFrance were shoring up old structural habits in order to prevent their incipient collapse. Curves and undulations now suggest landscape elements, while combed pigment not only alludes to rivers and their associated sense of movement and flow, but also reveals underpainting in the form of candy striping, like fluorescent rock strata or simulated wood grain. Real wood is juxtaposed with brushed aluminum, using organic/inorganic contrasts as a possible metaphor for left brain/right brain, yin and yang.

DeFrance has named each canvas after a particular butterfly, reinforcing the view that the series is about metamorphosis. If the caterpillar represents a severe modernism, then the beautiful butterfly must presumably signify its release in the form of an eclectic pluralism. The grid has become usurped by landscape, complexity by the ambiguity of metaphors. DeFrance’s work has thus become a battleground between two warring aesthetics, clearly suggesting an unstable period of transition. This makes for innate formal tensions but, at this stage at least, awkward and provisional resolutions. (Jan Baum Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to March 29.)