Yuka Tsuruno gallery presentsRivers need Springs an exhibition of oil paintings by Manika Nagare, from Saturday, September 5th to Saturday, August 3rd 2015.
Manika Nagare has earned high respect from her oil paintings, themed around Japan's nature and curiosity evoked by strangers that passes by daily. The theme smeared fragmentary with an extraordinary sense of color appears as an abstract, drawn venturously yet subtlety stimulating the viewer's imagination.
The painting, as though the theme and the background almost respond to each other, is formed by layers of lines, glossiness and transparency stained through the canvas. This first exhibition after three year will show ten new artworks of various shape. The title of the exhibition "ichiyo (One Leaf)" derives from "ichiyouchishu" which expresses the knowing that autumn has come only to see a falling leaf. Understanding the essence of the object by a smidgen of hint; just like it's meaning, underneath the initial subtleness of the surface, the pieces all convey imagination of the artist's thoughts.
On the opening day of the exhibition, September 5th (Sat), as part of the opening event, there will be a contemporary dance performance, which was inspired by the artworks. Please come by for this opportunity.
Artist statement
Even if I change my appearance with the same thoughts then when I was on the canvas,
the smell will pass through from detail to space.
Nature, sneak with harshness.
Stranger, never be able to capture all.
Stand in front of the canvas.
Like knowing that autumn has come only to see a falling leaf,
one brush, one color, from that glimpse, one understands.
Understand the fragment.
Understand the sense.
Hold an intimate moment with the painting.
Artist Profile
Manika Nagare (born in 1975) was raised in Kagawa. After graduating from the department of painting at Joshibi University of Art and Design, she exhibited her work at the VOCA exhibition, a platform for young emerging artists in 2000 and 2006. Since 2002, she has been an overseas artist-in-residence sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and a recipient of the Pola Art Foundation Grant based in New York, showing her work in the US, Turkey and other countries. With the remarkable usage of colors, her bright and clear paintings are well recognized. Major exhibitions include Glib Reticence, Reticent Glibness, Pola Museum Annex, Tokyo (2006), Domani: The Art of Tomorrow, National Art Center, Tokyo (2010), Line of Sight, Miyako Yoshinaga Gallery, NY (2014) and Embracing for Painting, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2015). Also in the Azabu Minato city library, she has created a public art that supervises the art and the whole environment, challenging herself to create art in the environment. This spring she collaborated with apparel fashion brand ENFOLD and global brand Shiseido and announced it with her collaboration item with her work printed. She also established "Ichijigahaku", a NPO that delivers art to children who lacks it from their lives. Nagare resides in Tokyo.