GALLERY MoMo is pleased to announce our exhibition with Naomi Okubo to be held from April 3 to 24, 2010. Work by Naomi Okubo begins by taking a photograph of herself striking a pose in front of the camera, and then to draw it again, as she reproduces it on a canvas. Occasionally, there are several people drawn in her work. However, all the people are still her. It makes us feel mysterious though the work is drawn realistically. Okubo has been producing works on the delicate relations with others as the theme. In this exhibition, she attempts to express the interpersonal relationship of her generation in her works, by questioning the meaning of “dressing” or “decorating” and considering the meaning and the function of it. Okubo’s works show us her characteristic features in the appearance of people who do not show us their faces and wear vividly colored clothes. This seems to reflect the difficulty of interpersonal relationships and also reflects attempts to communicate with others through the act of dressing up.

The room or the outside scenery is filled with pastel colors, and the people are intentionally depicted as having been cheered up. The same characters with same clothes are arranged by each figure at a time, and this also seems to reflect the passage of time. Please come and see Okubo’s works which project a woman’s sensibility and the present age, and show a marvelous sense of overflowing colors.

Artist Comment

“I am interested in decoration and dressing matters. Especially, I always think about what “dressing up” is for people. It can be called a means to conceal your original self while asserting yourself through wearing clothes with various colors and using make up. In the process of producing a painting with such a focus, I often find that the part of decoration which is the most remarkable at first becomes buried under something else as the decoration increases. It is almost as if the fist remarkable part changes places with the place added next to it. Just as camouflage uniforms worn for a means of camouflage, the person is concealed with the decoration. I am producing a work while considering the function and the meaning of such a decoration.”

- Naomi OKUBO, 2010