“Holiday Show 2013” Exhibition
Onishi Gallery
This event has ended.
Onishi Project presents the 2013 Holiday Group exhibition featuring four outstanding artists – Mariko Ishikawa, Aoi Nakamura, Toshiko Kitano Groner, and David Chang. With masterful skill in paper sculpting, oil painting, mixed media collage, and calligraphy, these artists demonstrate how their creative traditions translate across geographies, time periods, and cultures to express universal messages about the relationships between human beings, nature, and society.
Mariko Ishikawa, currently living and working in Tokyo, Japan, shows her paper dress creations that are, in this show, accented by mirror and glitter holiday aesthetics. Viewers often ask Ishikawa if her dresses are wearable, and while she must tell them that the dresses cannot hold bodies, they do contain memories and provoke desires. Ishikawa decorates each stunningly delicate dress with up to 1,600 paper flower petals handcrafted with hyper-thin, high-quality Awagami that is dyed with watercolor paints.
Aoi Nakamura, currently living and working in New York City, exhibits abstract paintings that reveal images through vibrant color and luminous shine. “Motherly soft lights in nature, beautiful shines, dynamic and powerful energies, lights lying deep in the human soul, lights that comes from unconscious mind — those are the things I would like to express in my paintings,” says Nakamura. Emitting visual vibrations through swirling colors and intersecting brushstrokes, these paintings are layered with nuanced movement both on the canvas and in the mind and eye of the viewer.
Toshiko Kitano Groner, now living and working in New York City, is an established landscape artist and still life painter. In this show, Groner embarks on new territory through mixed media abstract paintings that capture stillness in a new way. Through the pairing of deeply saturated color patches and sculptural blocks that are collaged onto the painted canvas, Groner creates bold planes defined by both sharp lines and rich wells of paint. Composed as if in dialogue with each other, the collaged materials playfully reach out to the viewer in contrast to the solid backgrounds that provide intense weight to the creations.
David Chang, living and working in New York City, exhibits a piece of lyrical calligraphy, entitled, “Trust.” For the past decade, Chang has developed a unique style through his journeys with eastern and western masters of calligraphy. In his artwork, he relates calligraphy to contemporary art in the West and abstracts it from its associated objects such as Chinese scrolls and spirit stones. “Trust” exemplifies the ongoing exploration into the significance and meaning of words and texts that are embodied through physical gesture. Capturing both grace and chaos in the interwoven words, Chang creates a maze of beauty and meaning.
Media
Schedule
from December 12, 2013 to December 24, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-12-12 from 18:00 to 20:00
Artist(s)
Mariko Ishikawa, Aoi Nakamura, Toshiko Kitano Groner, David Chang