Hollywood

Since the mid-’80s, ignoring or anticipating every foray of recent pluralism into Neo-Expressionism or Neo-Geometry, Scot Heywood has stayed steadfastly stuck on very reduced, hard-edge art. His first works were irregular arrangements of black and white panels; his last show limited the palette to black. He is still making those eccentric geometric compositions from combined rectangular panels painted a matte, uninflected ebony.

Black can look sensually elegant and a too-quick perusal of this work might remind you of Ellsworth Kelly. But in Heywood’s hand, the quiet fields, calibrated to reflect light and alternating ever so slightly between recession and tautness, strike a meditative rather than decorative chord. Rectangles are turned on their axes with corners pointing upward, then abutted by other slightly off-center and displaced rectangles to create a unified diamond format.

Never sticking to right angles or equal-sided shapes, Heywood finds asymmetrical points of focus and tension that draw you in hypnotically. He still seems committed to using the barest information to pull you in for a close, long reverie during which vision, affect and meaning are meant to be pre-verbal and wholly experiential. These paintings aren’t for everyone; you’ve got to be willing to stay long and lean close to “hear” them, so attenuated is their swan song. (Newspace, 5241 Melrose Ave., to June 10.).