La Cienega Area

Penelope Krebs’ paintings won’t sit still. They look staid enough: five thick vertical bands of intense, solid color running side by side. The central band is usually the feature player, flanked on either side by two supporting color stripes. But the dynamics of the color relationships are carefully calculated so the central form must fight the others for dominance.

On the monochromatic canvasses the central column either pushes forward or gets elbowed back by its flanking sentinels. Occasionally, as in the untitled all-red canvas, the struggle for assertion takes on a Mark Rothko mystical glow while an optically induced mandala appears in the center.

But the real action takes place in the polychromatic paintings. Here the bold color on either side of the central band generates Op art kinds of ferocious activity. In one untitled gray, orange and black painting, the effect is much like watching a two-dimensional surface breathe. Each hard-edged band stimulates pulsing retinal waves so that the gray seems to ripple and throb against the cadmium red and solid black. Granted, this is ground already well covered in the ‘60s, but the surprise here is that the multicolored paintings look so vibrant and youthful. (Kiyo Higashi Gallery, 8332 Melrose Ave., to June 3.)