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Seth Anderson has a wonderful way with a line.

In his early work, as a young Albuquerque artist, lines squiggled and doodled across his canvases, mimicking the drawings he did in notebooks while sitting in college classes.

The art was colorful and intricate, the lines forming figures and random objects that Anderson stained in shades of green, red and black.

He explored the technique about seven years, then hit a wall.

"I exhausted the things I was trying to do," he says.

That was five years ago. He was turning 30, getting married and thinking about family and his future.

"You reach a point where you have to change where you're at," he says. "The doodles were a mindless series, and I found myself thinking more about life. I wanted to take the work to the next level."

He experimented with materials and focused on the foundation of his artwork, the line, and what it meant to him.

He took some time off from painting.

"I thought about what I was doing, where I was going and what my art meant to me," he says.

Anderson is back with a new show at Addison Arts in Santa Fe, where he moved several years ago.

And the thought he has put into his work is evident. The line is there, but it carries new meaning, reflecting Anderson's growing maturity as an artist.

The pieces are numbered instead of titled, and each is a pattern of lines of varying widths and destinations. They meander, but they don't doodle. Each line has a purpose and an identity.

The colors are muted, giving the lines center stage.

To Anderson, the lines represent life. There are thick black ones, like ribbons, that twist across the canvas mirroring our DNA, what we were born with. The finer lines reflect how we live our lives, our day-to-day decisions and where we're going.

"It's about how we navigate through life," Anderson says. "How we get through this complex structure of meandering lines is how we define ourselves."

Anderson says the paintings capture moments in time during life's journey.

Like DNA, each image is unique and, separate from the meaning, beautiful. Anderson imbues each line with subtle attributes that contribute to a complex whole.

The lines have a grace that has been a hallmark of Anderson's work throughout his career. His composition and sense of color, even in the muted tones here, are flawless. His pedigree shows.

Anderson paints the designs in oil on newsprint, a material he used in his early artwork. He cuts the image into pieces and adheres them to a block of wood. He then covers it in beeswax, which solidifies the painting and gives it texture and depth.

Anderson is an art scene veteran. He's the son of prominent abstract painter Sally Anderson, who immersed him in art as a child in galleries, museums and her studio.

The La Cueva graduate studied business at the University of Colorado but lent his mother a hand with paint and design work, which she sent up to Boulder. He eventually followed his heart to a career in art.

For 12 years, he designed table and bed linens as well as rugs that graced the shelves of Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Eddie Bauer and other national stores.

At the same time, Anderson and his mother ran three galleries showcasing their artwork and that of other contemporary painters and sculptors. Anderson Contemporary Art had locations in Albuquerque from 1995 to 1997, Taos from 1996 to 1998 and Santa Fe from 1998 to 2004.

They left the gallery business to focus on their artwork.

Anderson branched out into designing and building homes, combining his artistic and business sides.

"Even as a kid, I drew house plans," he says.

He built and sold a spec house in Albuquerque's far Northeast Heights, built another in Santa Fe that he and his wife, Kristin, lived in for a while then sold, and is doing a home now for his parents in Santa Fe's Las Campanas.

Anderson, who is getting a contractor's license, also has started work on a home for the family that did come along: Kristin, son Max and newborn Cy.

Anderson says he loves building houses but has no intention of giving up art.

"It's my passion," he says.

Judging from this new body of work, that's great news for New Mexico's contemporary art community.