Fables From The House of Ibaan

Video projection on an oil painting on canvas

The installation shows painting of a man sitting at a table contemplating an empty jug. As the painting comes alive (video projection), three coloured candles by the side of the jug flicker to life. As the man continues to regard the empty jug, a woman emerges and fills the empty jug with milk from a pitcher. The man walks out of his painted body, lifts the filled jug out of its painted image and begins to slowly, gravely walk towards the outer door and stops as end of the table behind him catches fire. A small boy’s face appears at the table behind the flames. The boy looks through the fire which begins to die out. The boy walks past the man, opens the outer door and we see the woman (his mother?) standing outside in an open ground near a tree, waiting for him. Now we see the sea behind her which seems to roll back as the child shuts the door behind him. Soon the man with his jug full of milk opens the door and goes out, but this time instead of the tree or the sea we see a busy city street. Outside the door we see day turn into night. He turns the corner and after a short while we see spilt milk flow back over the threshold into the house. The man once again is left looking at the void of the empty jug and the loop begins its metaphorical narrative of renewal again.

"A man pensively seated at a table. Flanked only by a milk jug and votive candleholders, the static image serves as the front piece for a projected film. The central scene unfolds in an airy hallway amidst the easy domesticity of a central family unit. The son runs in and out of the plane, as the mother carefully refills the symbolic glass pitcher. This sense of comfort is quickly tempered by Kaleka’s deft handling of time. The artist dissembles and reassembles the viewer’s sense of space by playing with the concept of indoor versus outdoor. Also, his rich attention to detail underscores the work’s sublime quality and transports the viewer into a suspended realm".