A new exhibition by artist Temi Wynston Edun opens on Saturday, Jan. 17 at Gallery Blue Door in Baltimore. “Within Reach of Silence” is Edun’s first solo United States exhibition and will be on view through April 18, 2026.
Edun’s exhibition attempts to induce stillness and reflection in a world saturated with noise and distraction. “Within Reach of Silence” presents 18 works that reveal a world where presence and absence are not mutually exclusive. Portraits are tactile and layered, infused with generational trauma, ancestral knowledge, cultural memory, and hopes that speak louder than words.
“My work centers on figurative painting as a site of restraint rather than declaration. I am interested in how silence operates as a structural condition, shaping posture, gaze, and presence without resolving into narrative or explanation,” Edun said. “The figure remains central, but withheld, allowing meaning to gather without disclosure.”
Edun works primarily in oil stick on canvas, using a process of layering, scratching, scraping, and erasing. This creates dense, mottled surfaces that eventually emerge as figures isolated within spare or abstract fields. His subjects invite contemplation and sustained observation.
Edun was born in Ibadan, West Africa and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the University of Benin, Nigeria in 1984. He exhibited in Benin City and Lagos, then came to the United States in 1987. He studied under Baltimore-based artist Larry “Poncho” Brown from 1990-1993, and is now based in Columbia, Maryland.
His work has been shown nationally and internationally, with exhibitions in London (2021) and Paris (2022), and Edun has been featured in “New American Paintings” (Issue 166). In 2018 he was commissioned by the DC Black Repertory Company to paint a portrait of actor Robert Hooks, the company’s founder.
Edun is a member of the member of the Maryland Federation of Art and is actively engaged in arts education, volunteering as a teacher for emerging artists at Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Maryland.
The Saturday, Jan. 17 opening takes place from 4-6 p.m. Gallery Blue Door is located at 833 Park Ave., Baltimore, MD.
