Venezuelan artist Jota Leal and Polish artist Dariusz Zawadzki each mix elements of the fantastic and the surreal in their artworks. The two artists headline Copro Gallery‘s current group exhibition “Morpheus”, so named after its co-curators James Cowan and Morpheus Gallery in Las Vegas. Zawadzki’s series exhibits the artist’s skill in different media, mixing up oil painting, watercolor, and hand-embellished giclee pieces. His portraits of what look like post-apocalytpic villians out of Mad Max are treated with the rendering of old master painters. This combination of scifi with the surreal takes on a more whimsical personality in his watercolor of a long-legged cello that plays itself. She leads a long funeral procession of alienesque blue nudes across a featureless and foreboding landscape. Whimsy meets humor in Leal’s lighter themed paintings, a few of which feature Star Wars characters. Familiar images of Han Solo and Chewie reappear as warped caricatures that recall the elongated figures found in Salvador Dalí’s works. The revered artist, who wore a king’s ermine cape and a crown as a child, is portrayed sitting on his throne in Jota’s acrylic painting, “Metamorphisis of Dalí.” It’s not the first time that Jota has painted Dalí, but it does stand out as one of his more detailed pieces and a progression in visual exploration.
Dariusz Zawadzki:
Jota Leal:
Toronto-based 
