Don’t Miss Yunus Chkirate’s Latest Show: Journal with a living portrait!
Montreal’s magnificent artist, Yunus Chkirate’s latest show, JOURNAL, premieres a living portrait this week. The latest exhibition, JOURNAL, happens today October 5th, the doors open at 6PM, at 7PM, there will be a unique live performance.
Yunus Chkirate has conceptualized an original performance art piece in collaboration with Tony Bougiouris, a Julliard graduate, who interprets the emotions at the core of the JOURNAL experience, reflecting the introspection and varying, charged emotions reflected in the collection.
The showtime is set for 7PM and one lucky art collector will be able to claim this unique, multi-media piece as their own. The performance will be accompanied by a soundtrack curated by DJ TRND and legendary light master François Roupinian from Lightemotion will be on hand to illuminate the paintings and sculptures and set the perfect ambiance to fully appreciate the collection.
The JOURNAL Exhibition happens at Studio La Banque, 998 Notre Dame Street, Lachine, QC H8S 2B9, in an old, renovated bank that has since been converted into a large multi-media space, ideal for artists.
The show, JOURNAL by Yunus Chkirate, will run until October 9th, 2022.
Yunus Chkirate has become one of the darlings of the Montreal arts scene and especially the LGBTQIA2+ arts community since his first, sold-out show in 2011.
Yunus created 15 self-portraits, in the space of a year, with each portrait being tied in with a specific personal journal entry by the artist himself. Allowing Yunus to explore his humanity and his turbulent emotional state thoroughly and truthfully; and commit himself to explore the full extent of his interior emotions and personal state of mind, through his art. The portrait captions are numbered, to co-exist with the journal entries they are attached to.
His figurative style with abstraction elements is stunning, the play of colors and textures is alive, resonating with a frequency that pulses with the stuff of life on each canvas.
This latest collection is a personal reflection on one of the darkest periods of his life, the way we present and create these filtered versions of ourselves online even though we may be living in a reality that is far from perfect, ideal or even pleasant.
“…So much of my work has been autobiographical and instinctive. What should I create about? Everything. No boundaries. I need to speak about calmness, about validation, and about sexuality. I need to be truthful in the works as I observe and record the present moment on the canvas. I need to create about empathy, and about lowering expectations sometimes, about not being enough and about being special. I need to create about depression, about commitment, and about love. I have the self-awareness needed to analyze all these factors and the resilience to learn from them and thrive….” – from the JOURNAL of Yunus Chkirate.
Yunus Chkirate is one of Montreal’s great, emerging artists, his work is continually evolving and shedding new light on the realities of being human, in a post social-media society where we each hide behind an online icon. The raw truth of his inner soul laid bare on canvas, allowing the darker emotions we all experience to get the recognition they deserve.
The new show JOURNAL looks to be completely moving, a must see for any Montreal art lover and especially the collectors. Those lucky enough to catch a living portrait, the unique one-of-a-kind performance, will be the lucky ones.
For more art exhibitions produced with Kat Coric Art & Ideas, click here.
Lead image credits as follows:
JOURNAL NUMBER 4
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 40 x 40 inches (101.6 x 101.6 cm)
Year: 2021
