HOLLYWOOD

Conceptually, Scot Heywood’s latest all-black paintings draw upon a number of historical models, in particular Ad Reinhardt and Clement Greenberg’s formalism.

Each work consists of three rectangular panels of different sizes butted together to form irregular shapes. Heywood carefully slants each composition, avoiding obvious architectural references. We are forced to consider purely formal matters such as surface, shape, edge and line.

Heywood has an optical trick or two up his sleeve. The largest panel of each group is painted in a different shade of black triggering subtle retinal interplay. Illusionism is reinforced by arrangements that create the appearance of circular motion, a rotating, angular pinwheel.

By using non-reflective acrylics, Heywood forces the eye to the edge of the canvas, only to draw it back in again to the focal point of the intersecting panels.

Heywood proves this kind of painting still has something to say despite the nullifying tendencies of recent “Neo-Geo”; the challenge now is to see whether he can continue his explorations of visual flux without backing himself into corner. (Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., to Nov. 7.)