Pegasus Gallery features works by Mike Sweeney

MIDDLETOWN — Middlesex Community College’s Pegasus Gallery’s new show is “In the Air: Mike Sweeney.” The show opened Nov. 1, runs through Jan. 8, and will have a reception from 57 p.m. on Nov. 12. The public is welcome.

Mike Sweeney’s series “Cloud & Horizon” conceptually engages metaphors at the intersections of technology, communication, perception and the environment.

Works in the “Cloud & Horizon” series began by associating “the cloud” used for data storage with “clouds” produced by natural phenomena. Hanging and freestanding forms are constructed of woven strips of found paper, from which text and images are cut and torn. This technique produces a structurally unified matrix of fragmented bits of information suspended within the larger surface plane. The woven pattern appears within silhouetted shapes of amorphous clouds, architectural structures, landscape features, tree canopies, etc.

Complicating and complimenting the fractured content of the silhouettes are embossed texts pressed into white paper, legible only as shadowy phrases hung like sheets and towels on a laundry line. The dialogue between the woven silhouettes and the laundrylike embossments encourages personal associations while leaving unresolved possibilities for clear or factual conclusions about their meaning. Much like Sweeney’s earlier series “Books of Things We Do Not Know,” a series of solid wood carvings that appear to be ‘real’ books, this exhibition encourages contemplation and selfreflection through familiar subjects. Through personal engagement, Sweeney hopes to encourage simple awareness of perception, misperception, and all that we don’t fully understand.

Mike Sweeney completed an M.F.A. at the University of Connecticut in 1990. Since that time, he has been making art while working within educational organizations and libraries as a means of engaging with and encouraging his own and others’ curiosity and understanding of our world. Mike lives in Middletown, CT.

See more of Sweeney’s work, past and present, as well as his recent feature article in “LandEscape Contemporary Art Review” at https://mikesweeneyartist.com

For information and directions, go to www.mxcc.commnet.edu/Content/Art_Exhibits.asp

Contributed photo Pegasus Gallery at Middlesex Community College is featuring an art show with the works of Mike Sweeney.