Mohor Kejžar: Look Me in the Eye(s)!

Ivan Grohar Gallery

30 July – 14 Sept 2025

Curator: Anabel Černohorski

The exhibition Look Me in the Eye(s)! by the painter, musician and versatile artist Mohor Kejžar presents a selection of his works created in various media and techniques – from paintings, small-format prints, photographs to pyrography and a mural on the gallery’s wall. This is a continuation of the artist’s thematic exploration of his own work, which began in 2024 with the exhibition Of Hands at the Železniki Museum Gallery, featuring works centred around the motif of hands. This exhibition highlights the eye as a subject of art, its title, however, opens up broader dimensions of meaning – it serves as a command, a challenge, an address or even an appeal to honesty and sincerity in a society where these values are often lacking. In times characterised by rampant conflict and the prioritisation of economic interests over humanity, the call to look into one’s eyes serves as a demand for taking responsibility – towards others, towards the environment, towards the community.

Kejžar’s artistic practice encompasses a diverse array of expressive media and techniques. His oeuvre includes oil and acrylic canvases, mixed media, pyrography, digital art, works on various supports using airbrush, tattoo art, illustrations, photography and murals on exterior walls, in underpasses and on boulders in Kejžar’s own art park in nature, along the walking path in a forest above the village of Sorica. In terms of style, Kejžar’s work ranges from (hyper)realistic depictions to stylisations and elements typical of pop art – for instance, depictions of women with dazzling smiles that are reminiscent of the aesthetics in advertising visuals, while at times they overtly flirt with kitsch. A special section is devoted to caricatures created with digital tools. In his works, Kejžar often uses figural elements and motifs related to music, nature and animals. With their witty or polysemic titles, the works either serve as a commentary on the artist’s everyday life or are a reflection of a wider social reality.

On the central wall of the first room, the artist created a visually powerful work in situ, one that catches the eye from the very moment the visitor enters the exhibition venue. This brand new mural was created especially for this exhibition and will exist during the course of its duration. The motif of the gaze depicted in the mural also appears on the prints of Kejžar’s photographs that show two of the six murals from his Outdoor Gallery.

Kejžar started working on his boulder mural project in 2023 on the edge of his family’s forest above Sorica, not far from his studio. To date, he has created six realistic, large-scale depictions on cleaned boulders using colour sprays and airbrush technique. The first of the six was a depiction of his own hand – a reference to prehistoric cave paintings. This was followed by the depiction of a finger pressed to the mouth (Silence), which – like the depiction of an ear on rock created later – suggests that we should listen to our surroundings. For the third art intervention, a diptych of a pair of eyes, the artist chose two boulders next to a power line. The installation draws attention to human presence in seemingly unspoilt nature. The park contains two other depictions – one showing a flute player and the other an owl. The latter is almost imperceptibly connected to the natural ground thanks to moss growth. The reproductions of the eyes and the owl are featured in this exhibition, while a canvas titled Silence was recently created in the painter’s studio as an interpretation of its counterpart from the natural setting.

The duality between the natural world and human interventions in nature is depicted in a pair of older oil canvases painted in 2011. One depicts a Raven on a power line, while the other, titled Common Meadow Parasol, shows a remnant of human presence on a lawn – instead of a parasol mushroom that one would expect to see here, there is a (discarded) umbrella stuck in the ground. Another subject from Kejžar’s everyday life is depicted in the triptych Work in the Studio (2020), which shows the habits and the routine of the artist’s work process (a cigarette, a cup of tea, a paintbrush). Two more recent works – Green (2025), oil on canvas, and Two-Faced (2024), acrylic on canvas – have a distinctly socially critical undertone. They draw attention to a universal theme – the lack of humanity in a world where capital often takes precedence over life, where human well-being becomes of secondary importance and is – hand in hand with nature – marginalised.

The recurrent element that guides visitors through the exhibition are gazes – sometimes as the central visual element of the artworks in different techniques and formats, and sometimes as part of a larger whole. On the exhibition venue’s doors, which are concealed and usually blend almost imperceptibly into the gallery’s walls, the gaze motif forms a new site-specific work made up of cut-outs from the artist’s numerous digital caricatures. The omnipresent eyes that “follow” the visitor act as an allusion to the present-day society characterised by surveillance, which is at its most effective when it comes to the general population, while the system often fails to keep tabs on those at the top who are responsible for states of war and harmful interventions in the environment. As a call for accountability and transparency, the title of the exhibition Look Me in the Eye(s)! also opens up a space for reflection – about oneself, about others, about the environment – and thus encourages personal reflection.

Mohor Kejžar

Mohor Kejžar (1985) graduated in 2016 from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana with a thesis titled Depictions of Skulls in Tattoo Art. His mentor was Prof Milan Erič. His artistic practice is rooted in figurative painting where his personal experiences are often intertwined with humour. He works in various genres – from landscape art and portraiture to caricature, using a wide array of art techniques, including oil painting, pyrography, digital art, tattooing, murals, photography and video. His works have been showcased in numerous solo and group exhibitions and he has participated in various art colonies in Slovenia. He runs art workshops at the Blok Youth Day Centre in Škofja Loka and at Grohar House in Sorica. He is a member of the band Kejbele Ensembele. He has his own studio in Sorica.

Accompanying programme

Wednesday, 13 Aug 2025, at 19:00: A guided tour of the exhibition with the artist and curator.