ZenKitchen, gourmet vegan restaurant and the star of the docudrama series, The Restaurant Adventures of Caroline & Dave, opened its seventh local art exhibition last week.
Artist Samuel Jan’s latest collection, Animal Instincts, adorned the warm and welcoming walls of the sophisticated dining room on Somerset St. West in Chinatown.
The exhibition, an intimate collection of charcoal animal drawings, was paired with decadent vegetarian cuisine as artful and exquisite as the portraits themselves.
The 25-year-old explained that that the basis of the illustrations was to show that “humans and nature can coexist.”
Curator Andrea Stokes said she was pleased with the symmetry of an art series about the beauty of animals held in a vegan restaurant, as many people who don’t eat animals are people that love animals.
“Samuel’s treatment of the subject matter is so tender, loving, and technically perfect that his love for these animals is very clear,” Stokes said.
Jan explained that drawing animals was a calming technique that brought him away from the mundane and kept him in perspective as a person, constantly reminding him that humans are not the only species.
“The only thing that I want people to take away from this show is that they are inspired and find some sort of connection with not only art, but with the nature of the animals,” he said. “I want to move them.”
Dave Loan, the co-owner of ZenKitchen, said that the interest in rotating local art through the restaurant was inspired by the Chinatown Remixed Collective, an annual celebration of emerging and established artists in alternative venues.
The kitchen, which displayed Andrea Stokes’ art in 2010, has been a steady partner in helping local artists.
“More than anything, for us it’s about filling our walls with beauty and having something different every time our customers come in,” Loan said.
Nancy Green, another Ottawa artist alum who had previously hosted a show at the ZenKitchen, stopped by to congratulate Jan on Animal Instincts.
“[The owners] just look after the artists so well. They have a lot of respect,” she said. “We need this in our area, there are a lot of artists in this region and there is not a lot of wall space. But these guys are great, we really hit the lottery with the ZenKitchen.”
Animal Instincts can be found at ZenKitchen (634 Somerset Street West) until March 21.
