Santa Monica

Seattle-based artist Peter Millett is a minimalist sculptor whose sense of design is rooted in simple household forms--windows, doors, gates. Working with a Spartan vocabulary that owes a sizable debt to Donald Judd and Carl Andre, Millett fashions elegant pieces whose bright colors and rough surfaces give off a deceptive veneer of warmth; in fact, this work is completely disengaged--perfect cryptic objects isolated in their own perfect orbit, the nine pieces on view are wholly self-referential.

The basic component in Millett’s work is a length of wood resembling a child’s building block known as a Lincoln Log; Millett combines his logs to form a square for a piece called “Bed,” a figure eight for “Hoops,” an inverted ‘V’ for “Wishbone.” Resolutely mute, these inscrutable forms have all the moves down pat, but add little that’s new to the reductivist tradition. (Shoshana Wayne Gallery, 1454 5th St., to Jan. 31.)