La Cienega

Theophilus Brown, a Bay Area figurative painter who emerged in the 1950s, has not been shown in Los Angeles since 1968. In recent untitled paintings his subjects are idealized industrial scenes and figures in interiors.

In “Untitled (Elevated Freeway),” a startled dog pauses precisely in the middle of the lower edge of the painting. Behind it is a lavender street with a yellow divider, the reassuring, salmon-colored bulk of a dumpster and buildings whose sides are punctuated by the rhythmic repetition of window frames. The title object in “Untitled (Yellow Boxcar)” is just a small swatch of bright paint in the middle distance, a place for the eye to travel after hooking up with the green tanks and buildings casting colored shadows and the pink and turquoise cement laid out so cleanly in the brilliant, even light.

The small figurative paintings on panel are of studio situations: “Model Holding Coffee Cup,” “Beth Drawing Model.” The figures themselves remain ciphers, forms carefully positioned to stabilize other elements in the composition, to interrupt the transit of rays of light. The compositions exude a certain dryness and cautiousness, as if a casual sketch of friends at work was reworked too many times. An academic pall also hangs over acrylic-on-paper images of seated figures and charcoal drawings of male and female nudes whose tight, heavy outlines betray an unmistakable tension. (Koplin Gallery, 8225 Santa Monica Blvd., to Oct. 7.)