Annely Juda Fine Art presents the exhibition of new works by Yuko Shiraishi. The exhibition consists of 8 paintings made in the last two years as well as the installation 'Netherworld'.

Since her early childhood, Shiraishi has always carried the thought that death and stars are somehow related. This notion gave her the inspiration for 'Netherworld'. The installation is influenced by the architecture of Tutankhamun's tomb as well as the cycle of a star's existence. In Ancient Egypt, dusk marked the beginning of the journey to the afterlife, when the Ka and Ba that leave a person's body at the moment of death reunite, allowing the deceased to join the stars in the sky. Through this body of work, Shiraishi draws a close connection between the cyclical process of the life and death of stars and human cells, echoing the Ancient Egyptian's belief that life implies death and death implies life, that man is destined to die.

The installation 'Netherworld' shows the many layers in an Egyption tomb that surround the deceased. It is placed in a closed off section of the gallery, which is tinged in blue to resemble the night sky. Shiraishi has been working on a series of studies, collages and texts, which show her working process and understanding of 'Netherworld' and which will be exhibited alongside the installation.

Known for her abstract paintings with remarkable but balanced use of colour Shiraishi's new paintings have an especially gestural quality. Whereas most of Shiraishi's earlier paintings incorporate lines and geometrical shapes, these works have a much freer quality. The painterly background colour, which often almost resembles a wash, is accentuated by seemingly randomly placed coloured dots on the surface of the paintings.

Yuko Shiraishi had her first one person exhibition at the Edward Totah Gallery in London in 1988. Since then she has shown her paintings and installations at galleries and museums worldwide including the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Germany (2007), Leeds City Art Gallery and Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork (2003), Museum Wiesbaden, Germany (2002), Tate St Ives (1999) and the Ernst Museum, Budapest (1998). Her most recent gallery exhibitions include Leonard Hutton Galleries, New York (2006), Annely Juda Fine Art, London (2009) and Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel (2010).

Between 2001 and 2004 Shiraishi worked in collaboration with architects Allies and Morrison as internal and external colour advisor on the BBC buildings, White City, London. From 2005 she worked on several major architectural commissions in Japan, Germany and London. In 2008 she curated the Kyoto Art Walk at Njojo Castel, Kiyomizudera Temple, Tofukuji Temple in Kyoto, Japan.

At Art Unlimited during the Basel art fair in 2010 she showed her installation Space Elevator Tea House which was first shown with Annely Juda Fine Art, London in 2009.

Yuko Shiraishi lives and works in London.

Image: © Yuko Shiraishi, Annely Juda Fine Art