Blake Senini's current exhibition we are all of the same air extends themes from his previous work, particularly of his 2007 show informed by the landscapes of Lawren Harris. Returning to ideas centered around the phenomena of negative and positive space, pockets of light, and sculpture as wall pieces, Senini shifts these ideas into subtly altered perspectives, refocusing upon the role of light and lightness, and the spaces that exist in between painting and sculpture. Influenced by stories of Buddhist monks and their protests in Burma, Senini explained in an interview, "the [exhibition] title refers to the fact that no matter how far away, these situations affect us all."

Upon entering the exhibition, a large piece in wood and red stain appears as a spindle-shape, rising from the floor and met by a much larger twin in stasis-drip, meant to resemble what Senini called "a spinning fluid". The transparent cable holding the top piece in perfect position is a little distracting, and tends to push the piece into a weightier association such as stalagmite-as-mirrored-banister. A quartet of comedic ballooned shadows created by the sculpture seems to try to soften this reading, although they are dwarfed by the size of the piece.

Sculptural pieces which appear to float independently and seem much lighter than they are, are a strength of Senini's work and are better shown in the piece "lying to this sea of milk." Two thin arcs of smooth wood both sit upon and hug the floor, meeting to create a mouth shape somewhat reminiscent of arched skeletal remains. Layered and toned down to a soft pallor with chalk, the two pieces exist in between fossil and sculpture in a way that provokes sympathy and a compulsion to touch. A seam of silver-leaf, oddly ornamental, encircles both pieces as if wanting to mirror the darts of reflected light cutting through the inner shadows of the "mouth."

The piece "our hands clenched tightly together," a large two-sided shell-shape of wood jutting out from the wall, accompanies "lying to this sea of milk" with its darker side given a light-absorbent layer of charcoal. This side is generous and intimate, as if it were a piece all its own. This is because of its shyness and vulnerability, allowing the materiality to breathe and fascinate by its imperfect surface, which, full of seams, appears lovingly doctored towards a softness which draws in the eye like a safe zone amidst other pieces with strangely prosthetic touches. This piece approaches one of Senini's repeated processes of covering elongated wood in silver-leaf halfway as if they were mechanically dipped, and when faced from across the room, the foreshortened sides of "our hands clenched..." resemble this shape. Shafts of light appear between the silver-leaf side and the wall, its smoky nature softening the candy-wrapper appearance of the silver-leaf.

The remaining two pieces in the show seem the most directly related to landscape painting. Both wall pieces, "as she returns with nothing" and "with nothing," are of dark-stained and silver-leaf layered wood, their milky, bluish and reflective surfaces creating associations with the cosmic phenomena of landscapes through paintings such as those of Patterson Ewen or William Blake. Standing back about ten feet from each piece, the silver-leaf "skies" seem carved into the shapes of billowing cloud-sails hovering over the sullen shapes of blackened terrain.

When in tangent with light and intimacy with surface, Senini's new work links to that of artists such as Thomas Zipp, wherein residual aspects of landscape painting and formalism are resituated through a kind of romantic shorthand of visual codes. The most successful pieces in the show slow the eye without interrupting the poetic and personal, and don't shy away from the presence of their material, wherein vulnerability means room to breathe.

All images courtesy of Skew Gallery.