2019
Internally Outwards
Klavs Loris’ latest exhibition “Internally Outside” conceptually continues the themes that the artist started to explore at the solo show “Queen Before Your Eyes” (2018, “Maksla XO” gallery) and further develops his artistic style as a painter, which is dominated by abstraction with its colour fields and rhythm compositions, brush strokes and different textures.
Already working on the previous solo show, ambiguous outlines of characters started to appear in Klavs Loris’ abstractions. In the latest works, with the already crystallized system of characters, the artist personifies various internal emotional and mental states, giving those shapes and bodies of creatures. Similar to the antique mythology or the pagan cultures, where a deity or a “story” was assigned to different feelings or internal states, Klavs Loris has also concluded that building a dialogue with a particular creature is easier than with an abstract “ego”.
While painting, the artist more and more often has begun to reflect what kind of forces influence him to create exactly what he creates. Are we all “guided” by a good character or an evil demon? How big of a role do we have in our own lives and deeds? How much influence do social norms and public pressure have on one’s activities and decisions? Are we just robots, who execute orders without realizing it? These contemplations have personified in various characters – the good and the ethical, as well as the “dark one”, the mystical, the shamanic.
These reflections about uncontrollable forces, which influence everybody’s personality, are the main thematic guideline of the exhibition. It is very introspective and personal, but at the same quite universal, because everyone has wondered about it at least once. The imaginary creatures that have found their relative shape on the canvas, for each of us can remind the features that only we know. (Jana Jakobsone / “Maksla XO” gallery)