Kristina Jurjans

Kristina Jurjans

I spent the day, a rather blustery and cold one, gallery hopping along Queen St. West with one disappointment after another. Everything I saw held a pretension towards style. There seems to be a move towards cartoonish depictions of childlike darkness. I was about to give up when I decided I need a coffee, so I trudged into the Great Hall Cafe & Gallery. In the gallery room there was an exhibit of photo based work that intrigued me, but still it was not enough to take out my pen. So into the cafe, and there it was the only work I saw that had a from the gut honesty about it.

Here was a collection of figurative based mixed media Drawing/Painting, Collages. I found myself looking at each piece with the same eyes, but each struck me differently. I asked the young lady serving behind the counter if she knew anything about the work to find she is also the Artist. So out came the camera and my pen.

There are 2 distinct bodies of work in the show, one smaller the other larger pieces on canvas. It was those that really caught my mind. Upon inquiring I found out she draws the figures with charcoal on vellum, adheres them to them to the canvas then works over them with ink and acrylic paint.

The figures are disjointed and posed as though executed as surgical illustrations. Though there is an ephemeral nature that causes me to ponder about the connection of these disjointed poses with choices between mind and body. The relationship is clear. They can be united in cause but disjointed in effect. Cause and effect, motion and stillness, action and thought.

Katrina seems to be on the path of solution, and has just begun asking the questions. With one year of OCAD behind her these drawings have a maturity beyond her years.