![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/rsz_part_2_installarion.jpg\" "\\"OLYMPUS")
<\/a>Installation view of Part 2. Courtesy of Robert Kananaj Gallery<\/p>\nSo the Journey starts inside, finding yourself – who you are – going back to the roots, and then slowly recognizing yourself as an individual. Then you can belong to yourself, contemplate your newly found character, maybe build it further for a while, and\u00a0then, if you want, reach out to others and the society.<\/p>\n
It is indeed a very interesting theme to cover. The first exhibition was dedicated to Lula Motra\u2019s work. This was the first solo\u00a0exhibition of the Italian based Motra with drawings, embroidery and sculptures. She is a total outsider, with no formal art\u00a0training. She started three years ago with drawings, then embroidery and most recently assembly like sculptures. Embroidery is one of the oldest art forms practised traditionally by women. It requires skills, discipline and persistence to finish something like an altar cover or even a bed cloth. Motra wasn\u2019t influenced by any school or style. Her sensitive hands, guided by her special imagery, created a one of-a-kind-piece. There are large areas of empty spaces surrounded or disrupted by light colored silk lines depicting\u00a0flowers, lakes or city maps mainly in abstract forms; a very unusual but also very beautiful embroidery. Motra\u2019s drawings are colored pencil compositions also mixing realistic images like a piazza with abstract elements. They are very colorful and full of emotion – great fun to look at and try to decode. Motra\u2019s drawings and embroideries are visual diaries of her state of being, recording her inner journey.<\/p>\n Kananaj put up the second show in an unusual way, since some of Motra\u2019s pieces from Part 1\u00a0continue into Part 2. A few of her drawings and embroideries are there and\u00a0her tubes made of plastic straws are still\u00a0moving over the gallery’s walls. Three more artists are included in Part 2: Torsten Richter, Hollis Alexis Baptiste, and Luca Reffo. Torsten Richter is a Berlin based artist\u00a0whose drawings depict everyday objects such as scythe, pitchfork, an old fence or just a piece of wood the carpenter left behind with\u00a0his tool is still in it. Richter’s realistic drawing skills are great and he is a true follower of the old German masters.\u00a0The focal point of each drawing is an object on a white surface of the paper, calling attention to simple functionality of the device with amazing sensual properties. There is an almost religious dedication in his method of sitting long hours in front of his object and lovingly depicting the smallest details. The final product is almost conceptual with its imbedded super realistic parts. It is again a journey to the self, motivated by the meditative process of creating these drawings by worshipping the objects and cultivating the self.<\/p>\n Hollis Alexis Baptiste, the only Toronto based artists in this show, also works with everyday object. For more than 15 years,\u00a0Baptiste has been incorporating these objects of no significance, like plastic bottles or unusual shaped objects, to be part of his strange structures. Large plastic bottles become\u00a0abstract compositions and detergent containers create a group of strange figures, “illegal aliens”, as he calls them. Baptiste paints some of them bright yellow or deep blue or even Halloween black and red. They are funny and scary at the same time, an out-of-the-real-world assembly of his ghostly journey.<\/p>\n Luca Reffo\u2019s from Milan, Italy brings artistic research to his paintings, rendering disquieting movie-like atmospheres, imitations of original stage-set photographs and vintage film frames into his paintings.\u00a0Each event is\u00a0portrayed\u00a0as a still image, conveying a sense of anguish for dream-like situations often heavy with psychological references. The visionary aspect of his realistic images is further emphasized by an original and disturbing use of lighting.<\/p>\n<\/a>Lula Motra, Embroidery<\/em>.\u00a0Courtesy of Robert Kananaj Gallery<\/p>\n<\/a>Lula Motra installation from Part 1. \u00a0Courtesy of Robert Kananaj Gallery<\/p>\n<\/a>Torsten Richter, Board with Right Hand<\/em>, 2011, graphite pencil drawing on paper, 75 x 350 cm. Courtesy of Robert Kananaj Gallery<\/p>\n<\/a>Hollis Alexis Baptiste’s installation. Courtesy of Robert Kananaj Gallery<\/p>\n