SANTA MONICA

Joe Goode’s “Milk Bottle Paintings” caused quite a stir when they were first exhibited locally in 1962, and this mini-retrospective proves that 25 years have done little to diminish their impact. Monochromatic canvases in loosely applied gray, blue, green and purple pigment provide the backdrop for a ghost image of an Alta Dena Dairy milk bottle. The actual milk bottle, painted in a matching or complementary color, is placed on the gallery floor in front of its representational “ghost,” creating a subtle interplay between object and image, the innate flatness of the picture plane and the sculptural qualities of the surrounding environment. The results manage to metamorphose the seemingly banal into a quiet, meditative experience, transforming the vocabulary of Pop into a justification of painting that approaches the best work of Jasper Johns.

Also on display are a series of cast paper works by Laddie John Dill that do little to expand the artist’s vocabulary or dispel doubts that a once interesting artist has become lost to the exigencies of the design world. These vacuum-pressed casts of actual cement and concrete works (Dill’s usual prism/landscape abstraction) have been hand-painted to give the impression of a wide range of materials, and fuse the repetition of the print medium with the uniqueness of the individual painting. In other words, Dill manages to get as much mileage from a limited number of preexisting ideas as possible, without really having to question or push his already comfortable aesthetic. (Pence Gallery, 908 Colorado Ave., to April 11.)