A Czechoslovakia-born Canadian, Zoltan Kapus spends his days crafting fine metal work for the interiors of prestigous Vancouver households. By nights and weekends, this same workshop in Mount Pleasant becomes a space where Kapus can push his artistic boundaries using his exceptionally challenging medium of choice—a medium where there is little room for error.

“When I work with metal, the process is so slow, just so totally slow,” says Kapus. “If you make a mistake, you have to wait and do the whole process over again. It all has to be done very precisely.”

While the time he works with metal is limited to his workshop, stepping inside his apartment—also in Mount Pleasant—reveals that he has a long list of artistic mediums at his disposal: sculpture, acrylic painting, carving, and, soon, natural beeswax (of which he just bought 20 pounds).

Figures are prominant subjects in many of these works, which often resemble psychedlic carnival characters. Kapus's acrylic works, on the other hand, are noteably more minimal, exhibiting an appreciation of form, structure, and 3-D vantage points.

There is something dark and masculine about the majority of Kapus' work, from the sharp angular lines in his paintings, to the ominous, almost tortured, faces in his bottle sculptures.

Art, explains Kapus, provides an “avenues where I can express myself, my ideologies, and my dreams. Art is a place where my reality becomes fantasy.”

Kapus says that he firmly believes that creating art is a form of exploration—“because creativity is endless”—and he often chooses to explore subjects that are close to home, or close to him; his metal work has paid homage to his mother and the shop dog, a white poodle, that he grew to love.

After a dozen years in Vancouver, Kapus is proud to call himself a Canada “hailing from the Republic of East Vancouver” and keeps a Canadian flag on his dining room table as a testament to that dedication.

“I am one of the fortunate people who immigrated to Canada and have had oppotunity to live, learn, and work in one of the nicest cities in the world,” he said, explaining that his brother moved to Canada first, and he arrived to help out in his family's restaurant.

He was through his job at the metal shop, however, that he found his path into art.

“When I made my first piece of metal work, I was just so happy. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I wanted it to be life hrough my eyes—the way I saw it.”

See Zoltan's acrylic works for rent or for sale on ArtsALLY.com.