Santa Monica

To the careless glance, John M. Miller’s paintings look like bolts of geometrically patterned cloth. A steady rhythm of black downward-slanting lines and dashes zip all over the raw canvas, disappearing off the sides as if lopped off by a yardage buyer.

Closer looks reveal a great more going on. The marks seem to form a series of optically active bands, like hedges made of corrugated cardboard, which march down the canvas. Peer again and it looks as though the lines and dashes are working at cross-purposes--the lines, stubbornly adhering to the surface; the dashes, trying to pop forward from the canvas.

Miller, a longtime figure on the Los Angeles art scene, minutely adjusts the lengths of the black marks according to the size of the canvas, always stopping them in a precise fringe of strokes at the top and bottom. Propulsive energy is the key here, keeping the eye busy and happily tricked. (Fred Hoffman Gallery, 912 Colorado Ave., to Nov. 11)