SANTA MONICA

The late Gene Davis’ striped paintings have settled into memory as strait-laced, relatively dull versions of Kenneth Noland’s concentric circles and chevrons, Morris Louis’ stains and Frank Stella’s protractors. A current show of six paintings from 1960 to 1965 does nothing to diminish Davis’ more celebrated peers, but it rekindles interest in the Washington-based artist’s color abstraction.

In this group of canvases, Davis simply sets down one vertical stripe after another, but his orchestration of color is so unexpected and knowing that it’s impossible to see them that way. The bands blur and flux, defying constraints but ultimately pulling together. It’s as if you are viewing musical chords, with each stripe representing a necessary element in a grand totality. The stripes may ripple along smoothly for a spell, but then they undulate dramatically or snap your eye from one side to another. A single chartreuse stripe on the far right side of the vivid “Ferris Wheel,” for example, balances a much wider swath of bright color.

Try to figure out Davis’ system and you’ll find that it’s largely intuitive. Try to relegate him to the scrapheap of boring formalism and you’ll see that a row of stripes can be as mentally and visually engaging as narrative realism.

A concurrent exhibition features polyester resin-on-fiberglass sculptural works and a single oil painting by John McCracken. Well known for glistening planks that lean against walls and appear to be pristine chunks of solid color, McCracken shows two of these (one red, the other deep blue) and a pyramid of the same persuasion. In contrast are two pieces that cast him as a painter. One, a resin and fiberglass plank, is called “Painting” and becomes one by virtue of hanging on a wall and freezing swirling pigment into a solid rectangle. The actual painting, “Point View,” is a densely worked field of flickering color.

The curious thing about McCracken’s work is that it seems to flop between painting and sculpture--always looking competent but not exactly going anywhere. The solid-color planks and pyramid were made over a 12-year period (from 1975 to 1987), and so were the paintings (1973 and 1985). There’s no reason to demand linear “progress” from artists, but McCracken leaves the impression that there’s another chapter to his work if only he would get on with it. (Pence Gallery, 908 Colorado Ave., to Feb. 28.)