El origen del deseo. Los malos deseos. 2012. Mixed technique. 155 x 135 cm
Group Show Mami Yamanaka & Mari Ito: The origin of desire
14. 03 – 26. 04. 2013
Vernissage: 14. 03. 2013, 18 – 20h with Artist and Cocktails!!
JanKossen Contemporary is pleased to announce the first two-woman exhibition of Japanese artists Mari Ito, and Mami Yamanaka: The origin of desire.
Using traditional Japanese technique of painting and print making respectively; the artists Ito and Yamanaka delve into the inner complexities of nature; exploring our innermost, primal instincts. Toying with repetitive patterns, intricate forms and colours; both artists demonstrate a detailed technique that is both playful yet scientifically minute in its execution.
Yamanaka begins with a single point on paper, her pen never leaving the surface while patters emerge through deep meditative contemplation. Her work is a search for self-reflection and renewed discourse, as to what it means to be human within God`s creative process. Her patterns are recreated in repetitive patterns on silk paper against photographic images of nature. Animal silhouettes that dominate her drawings represent our fears as well as our naive hopes and expectations.
Ito however, explores the ID, or the „it“– in the purest form of our Animus instinct. Symbols of creation are shown against a background of gold leaf on canvas, expressing the urge to voice our existence that is idealistic, and yet painful since our desire to understand the meaning of being may never be realised.
Both artists live abroad, Yamanaka in Australia and Ito in Spain. They are joined by the same dilemma of merging their Japanese culture within a western environment.
JanKossen Contemporary Gallery, Haltingerstrasse 101, CH 4057 Basel, Switzerland
