Enjoining Silence: Selected Works on Paper

Michael Tweed

May 2006

Michael Tweed has spent the past twenty-five years quietly developing a strong independent aesthetic. The paintings in this exhibition are selected from those he has been creating over the past decade—an extended and on-going series of minimal abstractions investigating visual perception, specifically how space is perceived.

Informed by both Western and Eastern aesthetics and insight, the works presented in the East Gallery convey an austere beauty. Though comprised of seemingly basic forms and compositions, upon closer inspection even the empty spaces reveal complex layers and tonal variations.

These are quiet paintings which do not impinge themselves upon the viewer. Subtle washes of colour hovering on the point of visibility; many seem to reside less on the paper than in the very act of perceiving itself. One might be tempted to describe them as “meditative,” yet, impregnated with an overwhelming sense of silence and stillness, they remain suffused with a warmth and energy.

Michael Tweed is a local artist who works in painting, photography, video and audio. Author of numerous books of poetry, prose, art criticism, philosophical musings and theatre. Curator of the online exhibition FRAIL.ca. Co-founder of the literary journal Conspiracy of Silence.