Hearts, brains, insects and veins will “emerge as” 22 new subversive works on paper by Japanese artist, Tabaimo. She expounded on STPI’s print and papermaking capabilities to build up layers upon layers of stories, embodied in bizarre textured paper evocative of bruised skin, insect bodies and lacerated wallpaper. The new works are delicate as they are poetic and powerful.

Tabaimo’s new Wallpaper series project a suspenseful Hitchcock-esque interior, covered in repetitive pattern, shadows and burnt marks. The peeled off layers of wallpaper reveal an uncanny visual labyrinth of human anatomy, a tangible extension of Tabaimo’s “dolefullhouse” screening at the 52nd Venice Biennale, featuring hands arranging doll house furniture and frantically scratching walls to expose a pulsating heart and brain underneath.

Edition works show through, is a mapping of the human nervous system, highlighting vital organs such as the heart and brain on delicate Japanese Gampi paper intimating skin membrane and suspended with fish line, sewn in surgical precision.  

Tabaimo suffered from severe dermatitis and her afflicted hands used to impede her art-making, a sensation she describes as insects crawling under her skin, which prefigures in works such as, in-inner, where dismembered insect parts appear beneath the skin. Overnight translates Tabaimo’s subconscious vision of mounting insect parts that tick away time like an hourglass, deep forest consists of silkscreened insects forms, confined in box embedded into paper and skinspots are large-scale works with round “potholes” that reveal fragments of insect drawings.

To add to the immersive experience of the artist’s macabre world, Tabaimo will present an animated psychodrama inspired by new artworks made at STPI.
 
Over the past decade, Tabaimo has won widespread international acclaim for animated video installations that explore undercurrents of seemingly orderly, mundane veneer of contemporary Japanese society, defined by her unusual mix of surreal beauty and drawing style that recalls the spirited lines of Hokusai and the tormented genius of Hieronymus Bosch.