AT CROSSTOWN ARTS

Is creating art playing a game? That is the theme and approach of Megan McNaught's solo exhibition, titled Strategy, at Crosstown Arts: she creates a part of the work and then lets the painting dictate the next move. This is exemplified in her most striking work, a series of paintings in either two or three tones where five-inch by five-inch blocks are arranged in a geometric pattern on the large canvas. You can easily see its strategy-game aspect-the blocks are arrayed rather like the pieces in Tetris. However, the attraction of the texture of the brushstrokes and the striking choice of colors (gray on muted blue in one series, bright yellow on orange in another) arises from the forced structure rather than being diminished by it. McNaught herself remarks that her creativity seems to flow from the rules her strategy sets out. Thus, far from constraining her art, her method allows it to flourish.

McNaught's other series of work on display features a similarly tightly planned structure. She repeatedly prints out the Arial font capital "I" over a piece of computer paper, minutely skewing some of the resulting lines. Then she combines eight of these patterns and transfers them onto a larger piece of paper using wintergreen oil as a solvent. The effect is unique, and the subtlety she gets out of a single letter is initially surprising, but these pieces pale in comparison to her paintings. Crosstown Arts, which opened only a few months ago, attempts to highlight emerging contemporary artists, and McNaught, who has only shown in Massachusetts thus far, is exactly the sort of artist such a gallery should focus on. McNaught, with her intriguing schema of game-playing, shows potential for more striking paintings in the future.

Strategy, new work by Megan McNaught, is on view at Crosstown Arts, 1 North Sq., Boston, through Dec. 23. For more information, call 720-0100.