WILSHIRE CENTER

Trevor Norris makes bright-colored, exuberant paintings that--if all else fails--are still fun to look at. This year’s batch puts us in mind of aerial views of cities as imagined by a small boy in toyland. Checkerboards, little houses and suggestions of railroad tracks and roads run rampant in an explosion of activity. Rather like Manny Farber gone abstract, he tips up space and presents an array of separate incidents.

Working with enamel on aluminum and steel, Norris overlays crisply organized compositions with rather loose painting that spills over taped lines and welcomes occasional spatters. Generally he divides square formats into four quadrants and splits those diagonally with an X that runs from corner to opposite corner. Within this framework, he subdivides space and rotates gridded motifs, weighing highly detailed areas against relatively plain expanses of glossy pigment.

There’s nothing particularly new in this, but Norris’ maintenance of spirit and structure is laudable. In lesser hands, this sort of thing deteriorates into formal boredom or decorative chaos. (Jan Baum Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to Jan. 28.)