Lea Rasovszky’s third exhibition in 2014 is on display at Anca Poterașu Gallery until the end of the year. From stars to steroids. Two short stories about an almost metaphoric bestiary gives shape to the artist’s personal beliefs, by materializing an archetypal metaphor: the natural body, as opposed to the artificial one, intoxicated by steroids. The exhibition functions as a meditation upon the world and an invitation to draw closer to nature.

Lea works with the exhibition space, in which she intervenes by designing a set meant to highlight the narrative hid within the drawings and the paintings on display. In the center of the first room, she places a fitness machine under the gazes of the pumped-up bodybuilders. Their portraits have heavy metallic frames, an industrial design that complements the work and heightens its visual impact. Lea’s bodybuilders are hybrid human beings that come from her personal imaginary, via an intensification of regular physical features; they function as a critical reflection upon some negative aspects of day to day life. The portraits are drawn in one quick and confident gesture that is almost mechanic. The plastic eye added to the compositions gives them a playful dimension. Bodybuilders are a stereotypical image of power. The room has mainly grey and white shades, punctuated by a number of neon-coloured backgrounds, meant to point out the artificial quality of these monumental bodies.

The second room is striking due to the use of colour: multicolor paintings on glass, hung on flashy walls, and green turf on the floor. The resulting atmosphere is fairtytale-like, full of energy and vitality. Nocturnal tropicana, the series of paintings on glass, brings together transcriptions from dreams or fantasies, portraits in the stayle of bad painting which Lea has made her own. These are symbolic archetypes of an original being living in a universe outside of time, in complete communion with nature. “I want to get lost and see what goes on in that place where everything is hidden, where guides are rare and they talk by breaths and gestures, and they don’t let you get out but instead help you go deeper”, writes Lea in her diary. She invites the viewer to get lost among the beings she brings from outside of reality onto the glass. The dark heads with huge lips floating among the stars fill the viewer with emotions and powerful feelings. Lea carves the archetype of the original man, who precedes time and “does not look for nature, but is nature”.

From stars to steroids. Two short stories about an almost metaphoric bestiary is an imaginary peopled by creatures living in a perfect opposition, two extremes of contemporary man.

From stars to steroids. Two short stories about an almost metaphoric bestiary, curated by Anca Verona Mihuleț, is at Anca Poterașu Gallery in Bucharest until 15 December 2014.