Exhibition/event has ended.
Narumi Sasaki "As the Body"
Loko Gallery
Finished
SHARE
Artists
Narumi Sasaki
This exhibition, Narumi Sasaki's third solo exhibition at the gallery since 2021, focuses on the mobility of the body and imagery.
The power inherent in the myths, legends, fantasy novels, symbolism, and mysticism that Sasaki has referred to intertwines inseparably with the abstraction she employs in her paintings. It represents a "double indication" of pointing and appearing. Sasaki reads the era as a timeline just before the advent of "Modernism," aspiring for development, and believes that there is a humanity that perceives "invisible existences" that are irrational and not captured by mechanisms. It's the dilemma of human life, drawn to divine existence but not liberated from the universality of living and eventually dying.
Sasaki, bearing a history of linear Modernist thinking where abstraction and purification have progressed straightforwardly, creates her works while carefully feeling the distance between herself, who possesses a certain sublimity, and the abstraction that has been shaved down and purified in the world of Modernism. Within the realm of life, her works explore the interplay of primary bodily sensations and memories, consciousness, and unconsciousness, the body and reproductive organs, using motifs such as spirals, circles, plants, minerals, and the body, which can also be found in the everyday world. When these motifs permeate and expand onto her painting surface and the foreground, the physically visible images and the tactile sensations hidden within them create what kind of experiential world for the viewer? Sasaki, who speaks of her practice as "accepting the contradiction between the concrete and the abstract," also hopes for the possibility that placing concrete sculptural images alongside abstract images shown in paintings will allow abstract forms to appear as something named. In that space, concrete sculptures also transform into abstract images.
Art historian Gottfried Boehm says that "showing" inevitably involves "hiding," and "presence" and "absence" form an inseparable pair. In that realm, negativity and differences operate, giving rise to a process that produces some understanding in the interaction with vision. For Sasaki, it may be a place where she is released from the illusion of recognition and flexibly intersects and amplifies the invisible into sensory experiences.
Sasaki sees the chain of her own body and image and their mobility in the oscillation of images spread out in the exhibition space. For example, the sculptures of heads made of pottery, which have been used to express the form of women and the folds of clothing since ancient times, reflect spirituality, darkness, and the waxing and waning of the moon through their glossy, shiny black glazes. The sculpture of hands forming a circle with rolled fingers harbors symbolism of caves and temporalities that connect here and there, and eventually, it continuously evolves into the repeated imagery of twisting vines. This fluid movement beyond different objects is not only a symbol of the experiences made internally through Sasaki but also reflects her idea that the movement of generation and relationship can connect and be freely undone by all images. And this cycle also opens up the viewer's memory, imagination, and experiences. There, she picks up the weaknesses, ambiguities, and softness that have been overlooked in human endeavors, while sometimes pointing vividly and freshly to life and horizontality with tactile and latent power-filled representations.
The power inherent in the myths, legends, fantasy novels, symbolism, and mysticism that Sasaki has referred to intertwines inseparably with the abstraction she employs in her paintings. It represents a "double indication" of pointing and appearing. Sasaki reads the era as a timeline just before the advent of "Modernism," aspiring for development, and believes that there is a humanity that perceives "invisible existences" that are irrational and not captured by mechanisms. It's the dilemma of human life, drawn to divine existence but not liberated from the universality of living and eventually dying.
Sasaki, bearing a history of linear Modernist thinking where abstraction and purification have progressed straightforwardly, creates her works while carefully feeling the distance between herself, who possesses a certain sublimity, and the abstraction that has been shaved down and purified in the world of Modernism. Within the realm of life, her works explore the interplay of primary bodily sensations and memories, consciousness, and unconsciousness, the body and reproductive organs, using motifs such as spirals, circles, plants, minerals, and the body, which can also be found in the everyday world. When these motifs permeate and expand onto her painting surface and the foreground, the physically visible images and the tactile sensations hidden within them create what kind of experiential world for the viewer? Sasaki, who speaks of her practice as "accepting the contradiction between the concrete and the abstract," also hopes for the possibility that placing concrete sculptural images alongside abstract images shown in paintings will allow abstract forms to appear as something named. In that space, concrete sculptures also transform into abstract images.
Art historian Gottfried Boehm says that "showing" inevitably involves "hiding," and "presence" and "absence" form an inseparable pair. In that realm, negativity and differences operate, giving rise to a process that produces some understanding in the interaction with vision. For Sasaki, it may be a place where she is released from the illusion of recognition and flexibly intersects and amplifies the invisible into sensory experiences.
Sasaki sees the chain of her own body and image and their mobility in the oscillation of images spread out in the exhibition space. For example, the sculptures of heads made of pottery, which have been used to express the form of women and the folds of clothing since ancient times, reflect spirituality, darkness, and the waxing and waning of the moon through their glossy, shiny black glazes. The sculpture of hands forming a circle with rolled fingers harbors symbolism of caves and temporalities that connect here and there, and eventually, it continuously evolves into the repeated imagery of twisting vines. This fluid movement beyond different objects is not only a symbol of the experiences made internally through Sasaki but also reflects her idea that the movement of generation and relationship can connect and be freely undone by all images. And this cycle also opens up the viewer's memory, imagination, and experiences. There, she picks up the weaknesses, ambiguities, and softness that have been overlooked in human endeavors, while sometimes pointing vividly and freshly to life and horizontality with tactile and latent power-filled representations.
Schedule | Mar 15 (Fri) 2024-Apr 13 (Sat) 2024 Opening Hours Information
Opening Reception Mar 15 (Fri) 2024 17:30 - 19:30 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee | Free | ||||
| Venue | Loko Gallery http://lokogallery.com/en/  | ||||
| Location | 12-6 Uguisudani-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0032 | ||||
| Access | 7 minute walk from the North exit of Daikanyama Station on the Tokyu Toyoko line, 10 minute walk from the South exit of JR Shibuya Station. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6455-1376 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
Back to Articles
SHARE
No comments yet