Adelaide, AUSTRALIA - Artist Liza Merkalova worked on these pieces for over a year for the exhibition Apperceptions, which was to be held at Gallery M and feature 30 of her works.

From the artist:

Taking into account all emotional impacts and influences, the style of the majority of my paintings could be called Subconscious realism.

Acute suffering is deep shades of blue;

piercing happiness comes in different kinds of red;

inside my privacy is the moon;

the trees are mere vitality;

all the houses are lost homeland.

People exist as a reflection and recognition of already familiar emotions. Their faces are easy to read and paint; it's like remembering my own mood in different times. The paint is familiar too; colour manipulation is a way to figure out the balance and harmony between the seen and unseen.

The current exhibition challenges the audience by pulling their attention in different directions. I would consider each painting a success if you allowed yourself to spend one minute in front of something that took a lifelong process to complete.