Art Review

Not So Fast: Although James Hayward’s new paintings at Chac-Mool Gallery are monochromatic, there’s nothing flat, static or machine-made about them. Crisp, sensuous and giving, these seven domestically scaled panels rank among the best the veteran L.A. painter has made.

Each consists of numerous razor-thin layers of acrylic that have been built up and rubbed down so many times that the color itself seems to have settled on the mahogany panel as effortlessly as condensation forms on a windshield. The main difference between this natural occurrence and Hayward’s paintings is that while the former obstructs your vision, the latter lets you see things more clearly.

To take in a painting by Hayward, you have to walk around it as if you were viewing a sculpture. From an oblique angle, where you can see the smoothly sanded panel’s fine wood grain and the precise line formed by the edge of its painted face, you can also detect ghostly traces of crisscrossing brush strokes.

When the light hits them just right, the supple surfaces of these mature works seem to breathe, shimmering like swatches of silk billowing in a gentle breeze. Seemingly immaterial, they appear to be after-images of Hayward’s earlier monochromes, whose thickly encrusted surfaces cast shadows and embody frozen motions. (A fine, nine-part example hangs in the gallery office).

When you stand directly in front of one of the new works, however, the ambient light stops dancing across its mysteriously animated surface, which suddenly has the presence of a deep pool of dense color. Poised on this point, Hayward’s highly refined paintings present a fleeting moment of stillness and serenity amid life’s incessant changes.

Wisely (and humorously) titled “Nothing’s Perfect,” this suite of paintings stimulates your senses by slowing you down. Getting your body, eyes and mind to work in concert, Hayward’s monochromes get you to focus on subtle visual shifts and conceptual conundrums while enjoying every minute of the experience.

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* Chac-Mool Gallery, 8920 Melrose Ave., (310) 550-6792, through June 19. Closed Sundays and Mondays.