May 8 – June 20, 2026
Celebrating 120 Years of Abstract Art: 1906-2026
The Haakonson Family Gallery
Opening Reception: Friday May 8th, 7 – 9 pm *
Free admission
Not Solid consists of eight new acrylic and mixed media paintings by Edmonton-based artist Timothy Grieco. The works are unified by a visual language of recurring circular forms, dense patterning, and layered material surfaces that explore the vibratory and impermanent nature of physical reality.
Each painting is constructed through an additive process using acrylic paint, collage, and embedded found materials. Discarded net-like fruit bags, plastic packaging, and other industrial remnants are both collaged into the surface and used as stamping tools to generate repeating cellular and orbital forms. These circular impressions accumulate across the canvas, creating fields of visual rhythm that evoke particles, cells, and celestial structures without settling into fixed representation.
The exhibition title Not Solid refers to the scientific understanding that matter is largely empty space, structured through energy and vibration rather than stable mass. Timothy’s paintings translate this idea into tactile form. Thick acrylic layers, translucent veils of colour, and stamped plastic textures produce surfaces that appear simultaneously dense and unstable, as if vibrating between formation and dissolution.
The use of discarded plastics is conceptually integral. Materials commonly associated with waste and permanence are recontextualized as structural elements within the paintings. The netted fruit bags in particular function as both physical artifact and mark-making device, leaving behind repeating imprints that resemble microscopic and cosmic systems. This dual role reinforces the tension between permanence and impermanence, the synthetic and the organic, and the visible and the unseen.
Working from a background in printmaking, Timothy approaches painting with a process-driven methodology rooted in repetition, layering, and surface transformation. The resulting works possess a sculptural quality, with textured strata that recall etched plates, geological formations, and biological growth patterns. Rather than depicting stable objects, the paintings present reality as fluid, recursive, and in constant flux.
Not Solid includes a selection of large-scale and mid-sized works chosen from a larger body of recent studio production. The exhibition emphasizes experimentation, material inquiry, and the refinement of a cohesive visual language. In alignment with the Haakonson Family Gallery’s mandate, the project represents an emerging practice and evolving body of work that foregrounds process, material consciousness, and contemporary ecological and scientific perspectives on existence.
Artist’s Biography
Timothy Grieco is a Canadian visual artist based in Edmonton, Alberta. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking, Drawing, and Sculpture from the University of Alberta, where he graduated with distinction in 2010. His early practice focused on copper plate etching, emphasizing repetition, process, and layered symbolic imagery.
Over the past several years, Timothy has expanded his studio practice into acrylic painting and mixed media. He has developed a distinctive material approach that incorporates repurposed industrial plastics, including net-like fruit bags and packaging, as both collage elements and mark-making tools. This shift has led to a textured, sculptural painting style grounded in material experimentation and surface transformation.
His work has been exhibited in Edmonton and internationally in group and solo exhibitions, including presentations at Brighton Block, Nina Haggerty Centre, SNAP Gallery, and Eriadnos Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Alongside his studio practice, Timothy has contributed to the local arts community through roles in art education, mentorship, and gallery support within artist-run centres and community-based art organizations.
He maintains an active studio practice focused on acrylic and mixed media painting, with an emphasis on process, repetition, and material research.
Artist’s Statement
My artistic practice investigates the relationship between perception, material reality, and the unseen structures that shape existence. I am particularly interested in the idea that what appears solid is in fact dynamic, vibratory, and in constant flux.
In my recent acrylic and mixed media paintings, I work with recurring circular forms that echo patterns found across scientific scales, from microscopic organisms to planetary and cosmic systems. These forms emerge through repetition, layering, and accumulation, creating visual fields that suggest movement, instability, and continuous transformation rather than fixed objects.
Material choice is central to my process. I incorporate discarded plastics, especially net-like fruit bags and packaging, both as collage elements and as tools to stamp patterns directly onto the canvas. Their synthetic durability contrasts with their status as waste, allowing me to explore tensions between permanence and impermanence, preservation and decay. The imprinted textures resemble cellular, orbital, and energetic structures, reinforcing the idea that matter is not static but structured through vibration and interaction.
My background in printmaking informs my approach to painting. I treat the surface as a site of process, where layers build slowly through repeated gestures, pressure, and material intervention. Thick acrylic applications, translucent washes, and embedded plastics create tactile surfaces that appear dense yet unstable.
Ultimately, my work functions as a visual inquiry into how we perceive reality. Through pattern, texture, and material transformation, I aim to evoke a sense that everything is interconnected, in motion, impermanent, and fundamentally not solid.
Timothy Grieco, The Lake. Detail of the painting. Courtesy of the artist.
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