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John Adelman is an artist who plays by the rules. Of course, they are rules he sets for himself with each new work, and so they do not seem too onerous. And although they consistently produce elegant and engaging drawings, some of them seem a little odd.

For Nails, he dropped roughly 15,000 nails onto a sheet of paper not quite 4-foot square and then traced each one where it fell. There is some scatter along the perimeter of the paper, but the bulk of the nails form a spiky, teeming mass of black ink. For Paint Chip, he traced the outlines of paint chips from another artist's defaced painting, then proceeded to write the words "PAINT CHIP" in tiny block letters until they formed a dense blue landscape.

Such procedures come off as pretty straightforward when you compare them to a description such as this in Mr. Adelman's notes. "Dictionary definitions translated into numbers and catalogued as granola cereal. Entire box traced on drawing surface."

Whatever that means, take the artist at his word when he says that within each work, he follows the logic of his rules through to the end. The results can be beautifully wrought surfaces covered in tiny script that is illegible but leaves a compelling trace of human activity.

Some of Mr. Adelman's smaller pieces become deep-blue, monochromatic fields covered with his distinctive script. Larger works can have a looser, calligraphic quality. Seating has been made by tracing a small folding chair hundreds of times.

The final 48-inch-square drawing has been washed and scrubbed until the black gel ink has taken on the quality of graphite. It's the most graceful of Mr. Adelman's output in this impressive, debut showing. Visually it provides the kind of pleasure that he must find in following his eccentric rules to their surprising, sensuous ends.