WILSHIRE CENTER

Now in his 80s, Leon Polk Smith is a veteran abstractionist who became a leading figure in American hard-edge painting in the 1950s and influenced, among others, Ellsworth Kelly. Like many of his ilk, Smith drew upon the Neo-Plasticist ideas of Mondrian and developed a unique signature notable for its economical equilibrium of shape, edge and color, as well as the interchangeability of form and space.

This is perfectly illustrated by Smith’s “Correspondence” and “Form Space Series” (from the 1960s and ‘80s, respectively), where positive and negative space is equalized. Conversely, “Long Journey” (1980), a large, three-panel work, uses a pair of blue wedge shapes that intrude top and bottom into a field of green. Although the work is formally quite simple (symmetrically reversed geometries), the effect is astonishing, setting up an apparent wave-like motion that threatens to break the work’s geometrical parameters engulfing the surrounding space.

Smith’s work stands head and shoulders above recent “Neo-Geo” knockoffs. Arcs, ovals, circles and rectangles play off the vertical pillars and horizontal wall “frames” of the room, carrying the experience of the art object into real space. The work is an environmental catalyst, as architecturally active as it is quietly self-referential. (Burnett Miller Gallery, 964 N. La Brea Ave., to June 20.)