Counter Weight

Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch 

February 2026

Counter Weight 2, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 500 x 400
Counter Weight 3, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 500 x 400
Counter Weight 5, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 500 x 400
Counter Weight 6, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 500 x 400
Counter Weight 8, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 820 x 630
Counter Weight 9, 2026, 
Metallic acrylic on canvas, 820 x 630
Counter Weight is a new series in Mark’s ongoing body of work based on the urban landscape. 

Negative shapes in and around typographic forms are taken as metaphor for the spaces that we traverse in our built environment. The names of streets and neighbourhoods are the starting points in identifying these intervals and apertures – like an echo or trace of the maps in our minds that correspond to the physical world. Just as we use the spaces between letters to identify words and therefore meaning, perhaps we use urban spaces like streets and footpaths to form meaning as we navigate our neighbourhoods, towns and cities. 

To a certain extent, the work explores key philosophical concepts from Benjamin’s ideas around fragments and Derrida’s concept of différance, in time. Meaning is never fixed but always evolving. 




©MMXXIVMark Soltero – Visual Artist