Delineation is a collection of soaring images printed on aluminum.

Showing by appointment at my new home studio

In the movie and book 2001: A Space Odyssey a monolith appears to a group of proto-humans. Its baffling nature challenges the creatures’ view of themselves and each other and compels them to a higher level of comprehension. In this age of technology and materialism, modern-day glass and concrete monoliths have surpassed cathedrals as the structural representation of humanity’s reach toward some kind of enlightenment. The striving for materialism as represented by the bank towers and luxury condominium residences has outpaced our striving for spiritual illumination.

When these structures are scrutinized visually, many elements and their relationships become apparent which are difficult to perceive when seen in the context of a cluttered urban environment. Texture, geometry, perspective, colour, line, shape and proportion are unique to every building. The juxtaposition between glass and marble, reflection and solidity, and translucence and opaqueness, reveals the dynamic character of the building’s relationship with its surrounding, mostly, the sky.

"Because he is an explorer, Joe challenges himself today by leaving the world of micro-crystals in order to reach for the sky, by going from one extreme to the other. He does this in his latest collection of pictures of skyscrapers – where he finds poetry and metaphors in the vertical lines, the sharp, unexpected angles of the familiar buildings which we can see now like we’ve never seen before.

If before we got used to the delicacy with which he handled the fragile wonders of a small universe, now we find a powerful artist that is not afraid to bend light, steel and concrete to make the giants of the downtown express his artistic statement: Delineation / Between earth and heaven lies / Essence of desire."

–Eliza Ghinea, Dreamscapes

Joe Calleja was born and raised in the west end of Toronto. Joe has always had a creative bent. He studied theatre and stage design, writes poetry, and is a graphic designer and fine art photographer. He loves to photograph the often overlooked beauty he discovers in the world around us. He has shared his vision in three previous exhibits, Fluidity, Flightscape and The River’s Passion.