Yoko Mitsuyuki Exhibition
Walter Wickiser Gallery
This event has ended.
For several years now large rounded shapes have dominated the paintings of Yoko Mitsuyuki, swelling and at times almost pulsating within the boundaries of the canvas. They are variously (and at times literally) like a heart, a primitive head, an apple or some other ripe fruit, and clearly they have some deep personal resonance for the artist. For the viewer or critic steeped in Western art history, they recall the playful biomorphic shapes of the German-French painter and sculptor Jean Arp, but Mitsuyuki comes out of a different tradition, and there is something decidedly Asian about her use of color and pattern. She has written of the influence of the natural beauty of her hometown, Yanagawa, in the southern part of Japan. Could the patterns of stripes at the perimeter of her works be a memory of the city’s canals? Do the dreamy blues summon up the waterways of this famously charming place? It’s probably best not to get too literal-minded and to accept the paintings for what they are: masterful juxtapositions of line, color, and shape that can evoke a range of moods, from the gently comic character of Autumn to the exuberance of Soar, which might conjure up a flock of birds or a school of fish floating lazily through some undefined space.
Media
Schedule
from May 24, 2008 to June 18, 2008