Japanese artist Yuko Nakaya has arrived in Boise, and is installing her solo exhibition at the gallery next week. Nakaya is the 2001 recipient of the YUMEHIROBA HARUHI BIENNALE (Aichi) Award for Excellence. Her work is shown primarily in Japan and Brussels. Stewart Gallery is honored to be introducing her work in the United States.
Japanese artist, Yuko Nakaya, is the 2001 recipient of the YUMEHIROBA HARUHI BIENNALE (Aichi) Award for Excellence. Her work is shown primarily in Japan and Brussels. Stewart Gallery is honored to be introducing her work in the United States.
Japanese artist Yuko Nakaya creates lush and compelling installations that incorporate painting, sculpture and drawing. Her work is an exploration of borders; borders as walls between nations and cultures, the border between the conscious and unconscious mind, and the borders we create between ourselves and others.
Nakaya integrates a wide variety of materials in a delicate balance, creating works that move seamlessly between the traditional boundaries of two- and three- dimensionality in artwork. Her paintings combine a rich color palette and intense contrast to create a palpable depth, with forms that seem to rise up off the canvas and plunge deep beyond it. A two-dimensional painting presented on the floor becomes the base of a sculptural installation. Lines made from vinyl tape traverse floors and windows in an immersive and multi-planar drawing. The ability to define pieces by category disappears, breaking down the borders we have assigned them.
There is an ephemeral tension in Nakaya’s work, an impression that each piece captures a fleeting moment of perfection. It is the anticipation in watching a soap bubble, knowing that at any moment it will burst, that the flower in perfect bloom will wilt tomorrow, and that the sunset is already disappearing behind the skyline. This transience momentarily breaks down the border, allowing the viewer to glimpse the conscious and the unconscious simultaneously, in an instant of clarity between states.
