Pinkney Herbert, Susan Madacsi play with shapes, colors at David Lusk Gallery

Pinkney Herbert's new works, like "Fanfare 4," convey confidence through thoughtfulness and restraint.

Playful, expressive colors add expressiveness to Susan Madacsi's metalworks like "Confectioner's Flag."

As different in weight and implication as the materials may be, it makes sense to juxtapose pastel-on-paper drawings by Pinkney Herbert with painted steel constructions by Susan Madacsi, as David Lusk Gallery has done. The two exhibitions — "Broken Time — Progressions" by Herbert and "Chromaphobia" by Madacsi — bear a marked similarity in color and coincidental shapes and in a sense of latent contemplative power that flows from the works.

There will be an opening reception from 6 to 8 tonight.

Herbert, long a creative presence and an influential teacher in Memphis, has defined his commitment to abstraction in several decades' worth of paintings and drawings that teem with energy so compelling that the whirling, tornado-like vortexes that comprise his central motif seem to suck viewers into their maelstroms — or blow them out of the gallery. At times that intensity, that exertion and giddy exuberance overwhelmed the work, leaving a feeling not so much of exhilaration but of exhaustion; at a time, it seemed as if Herbert had painted himself into a corner, a highly animated and intoxicating corner, to be sure, but still a difficult place from which to extricate himself.

But extricate himself he has.

The large — 41.5-by-29.5 inches — pastel on paper drawings now displayed at David Lusk Gallery, through June 30, are the most beautiful and most confident works that Herbert has produced in his career, or at least that we have seen in Memphis. No, the artist has not abandoned his trademark rapid and sometimes abrupt gesture, nor has he forsaken the circles, swirls and voids circumscribed by blunt squares, rectangles and trapezoids that characterize his imagery. However, these themes now convey signs of elegance and shapeliness that are new to Herbert's esthetic; there's a perception of thoughtfulness, of well-gauged balance and poise that lend these pieces deep and essential equilibrium. At the same time, the artist has not lost his fundamental spontaneity and sense of play.

Particularly in the "Mark" series and in two from the "Detour" series (Nos. 9 and 10) there's a new emphasis on meditative stasis, on standing outside oneself and — one never thought to say this about Herbert's work — egoless restraint that's not only refreshing but that also seems to have brought from the artist remarkable insights about the nature of his own effort and achievement "out of time." Let's hope that these are not detours but a rigorous path to self-examination and enlightenment.

What, then, do Herbert's two-dimensional works on paper have to do with Madacsi's three-dimensional sculptures? Her exhibition title, "Chromaphobia," means "fear of color," which seems anomalous since she is a master of subtlety and seemingly instinctual use of color; many of the hues she uses on these tightly clustered yet freely composed pieces resonate with Herbert's colors in happy coincidence. As in his work, there's a force of power and dynamism in Madacsi's pieces that is paradoxically active and passive, the forged steel disks from which she builds the form conveying weight and substance, while the colors — enamel covered with wax — are airy, playful and expressive.

The steel disks are not merely disks; one senses from a distance some kind of texture, and up close sees many-pointed stars, hexagons, grooves, ridges and other striations worked into the surfaces, animating them like busy jewels. Especially with the major pieces, "Blue Cloud" and "Confectioner's Flag," the viewer feels the company of craft, art and imagination inextricably twined.

Pinkney Herbert, 'Broken Time — Progressions'; and Susan Madacsi, 'Chromaphobia'

Reception tonight from 6 to 8 at David Lusk Gallery, 4540 Poplar in Laurelwood. The exhibits run through June 30. Call 767-3800.

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