Somewhere in the Middle

The middle isn’t glamorous. It’s not the thrilling beginning, all urgency, freshness, and newness. It’s not the victorious finish line either. It’s the somewhat capricious stretch in between, the part where you pause, look around, and realize you’re still figuring things out. For a visual artist, this space can feel surprisingly and achingly fragile. There’s momentum, yes, but certainty? Rare.

In Somewhere in the Middle, Lui Manaig turns that uneasy, in-between zone into the heart of the exhibition. His large works depict ordinary environments: a traffic intersection in Daily Grind, a camping ground in Finding my center I, and a resort landscape in Finding my center II. Places buzzing with movement, or offering a temporary escape. The artist renders them with a keen eye for color and density. The captured cacophonies are lively, crowded, and celebratory, full of the chaotic energy of everyday life.

Then comes the interruption. Bold carpets and patterned rugs command these environments, flattening space and refusing to blend politely. They act like visual brakes, demanding attention just as your eye wants to wander deeper. These interruptions seemingly echo Manaig’s personal hesitation, the instinct to play it safe, the small doubts that creep in mid-step. The rugs block but also, undeniably, energize. Their clever patterns spark a playful tension between surface and depth, decoration and narrative, reminding us that painting is still paint on a flat surface, and it can choose what to reveal and what to hide.

The artist's smaller works, titled No Shame and maximum Freedom, take a completely different approach. These pieces are unrestrained. Fits of drunkenness, smushed cake and party food, stray fish and chicken, regrettable hairstyles, and forays into random encounters and athletic eras lend themselves to strange combinations with fragments covered by what appear to be smaller cuts of carpet, brilliantly designed pasties or colorfully patterned censors stopping short of pixelating the controversial. Here we see the artist making for the sake of making while brimming with scandalous glee, risk-taking for the pure joy of it, and the willingness to look a little foolish.

All together, Manaig's paintings make an effort to balance caution and curiosity, and between them lies the real subject of the exhibition: The middle. And it’s messy, colorful, occasionally awkward, and full of possibility. In other words, it’s exactly where painting, art, and we dare say the artist, comes truly alive.