Slipway

The exhibition "Slipway" at Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, features the first European solo exhibition of Indiana-based painter Peter Shear. Shear is known for his small-format canvases that explore an abstract approach, moving away from established idioms. His works utilize essential elements like planes of color, schematic marks, and provisional geometries, existing between abstraction and legibility. The paintings are characterized by varied brushwork and layered or exposed grounds, with a focus on "drawing in paint" and resolving compositional tensions. Shear's practice is compared to artists like Thomas Nozkowski and Raoul de Keyser, emphasizing a quieter, more searching engagement with the medium.

The exhibition draws parallels with Robert Musil's concept of "essayism," highlighting tentativeness and possibility. Shear's canvases are presented as fragments that resist definitive resolution, holding viewers' attention through their unresolved nature. Specific works like the titular "Slipway" evoke natural processes through broad color sweeps and scraped layers, while "Valve" uses thick strokes to suggest mechanical rhythm. Other pieces, such as "Scan," are reduced to essential graphic components, and titles like "Touch" add layers of intimacy or playfulness. The exhibition is conceived as a device that poses questions about the generation of effect through an economy of means, with the viewer completing the "sentence" of the artwork through their encounter.