The Michael Walsh exhibition in the Elliot Gallery, at the Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation is strikingly minimalist. Indeed, it consists of a lead, floor sculpture and a number of figurative, wall silhouettes in black. I suppose that I can best describe the show as simply appealing.

The floor sculpture, entitled "Floating Man", is made up of casts of varying body parts, such as face, chest, hands etc. The body seems to be floating, as if in water, hence the show's title, "Buoyancy". Only those body parts that would have been visible above the water have been cast. It is as if most the body had sunk into the floor and was thus out of sight.

The exhibition invitation suggests, however, that the body is not the artist's real subject, rather, it is everything the body displaces. This is asking the audience to see the work in a new way, much like the common assignment given in art college drawing classes, that of emphasising the negative space around an apparent subject.

The method used by this artist for casting body parts is a complex one. Take the face as an example: after preparing the face, including placing breathing straws in the nostrils, a negative cast is made with plaster of paris. This creates a highly detailed impression, every pore and wrinkle being visible. Afterward, a positive cast is produced and in this instance, it was cast in lead, which was poured into the mold, while molten.

There are five small figurative silhouettes on the wall, each having been drawn on large sheets of white paper in black crayon. The relationship of silhouette to the size of the paper is of interest, in that the black silhouettes are small, while the white paper is very large, nevertheless, the blackness of each figure demands our attention. Of the five silhouettes, four, although of solid black, appear as nude. That is because there is no evidence in the silhouette's crisp edges of anything resembling clothes. The fifth silhouette is of a small, kneeling child with a sailboat and in this piece, edges do indicate clothes.

Some background on the history of the silhouette may be useful in appreciating Michael Walsh's use of this method. Silhouettes go back a long way in the history of art, back to ancient Greece, at least, but it was in 18th century France that the art was again revived, but in this case, as cut-outs in black paper.

Actually the name of this art comes from an 18th century French minister of finance, who was named Etienne de Silhouette. It is known that he had as a hobby, the cutting-out in black paper, the profiles of friends and family members. Since then, the art of silhouettes has waxed and waned in popularity, but recently, with the art of Kara Walker, there has been renewed interest in this art form.

Kara Walker is an African-American artist, who uses this technique in much the traditional cut paper manner, but with a subtle and quite risque twist. She was recently honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The good thing about the Michael Walsh exhibition is its spareness. This allows the viewer the opportunity to concentrate on the few pieces on show and to bring to the experience, their own background, their own understanding, as well as own observations and possibly, use this show as an opportunity to debate the human situation, as well as the place of art in human existence.

The show continues unrtil May 23.