Category: Exhibition

• English
• 日本語
• 中文

 

biscuit gallery is pleased to present Yumeno Goto’s solo exhibition “Nos sumus luna, Vmbra luceat (We are the moon、the shadow to illuminate).”

Yumeno Goto is an emerging artist who graduated from Joshibi University in 2019 and completed her graduate degree at Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts with a major in Oil Painting (First Research Laboratory). 

Goto’s practice is centered on creating art which shines a light on innocent people who continue to fight against the negative feelings associated with their experiences of oppression. While the world on view in her work is both spiritual and magical, Goto states “this fantasy world is not an escape,” and she hopes instead that through her work viewers will “feel people’s pain, what it is they want to protect, and their strength.”

The sense of materiality in her work is of particular interest to Goto, which has a great sense of depth and gravity despite its ultimately two-dimensional form. She also has pierced real nails through the canvas of her works, underscoring her unique ideas and methodology.

【Artist Statement】

Prostitutes, considered impure in modern times, were seen as sacred priestesses in antiquity and performed acts of prostitution in temples during religious ceremonies. This was before sex was considered a secular activity. In Japan, folk priestesses, called “walking priestesses,” used to travel around and perform dances and sexual services.

Women alone were believed to have the power to bear children and that magical power was considered sacred in ancient times. However, soon after it was discovered that men were needed for procreation, and women were suppressed as property, a practice that has continued to the present day.

Prostitutes in particular were made to take on the role of the unclean in modern Europe, sacrificed for the salvation of the rest of the population.

The theme of this exhibition is “prostitution.” As you move from the first floor to the third floor of the gallery, the painted women shed their veils and underwear, and the exhibition unfolds as if reinterpreting a tour of the womb and the rituals of life, death, and rebirth.

The stripping women echo the myth of Ishtar’s descent into the underworld, where she takes off the seven veils and appears as a naked figure, without a single thread of clothing, before the gates of hell.

By holding a bow and arrow as a symbol of masculinity and taking off their white underwear, I depict the dedication of these women, their nature as prostitutes expressed at the cost of pain, as they shine their light on the world.

A symbol of the oppressed and vulnerable, devotion is to care, to heal people’s hearts, and sexuality is also included within this act.

The title of this exhibition is “We are the moon, the shadow to illuminate.”

The moon symbolizes the feminine and the sun the masculine, yin and yang.

The moon is invisible from earth without the light of the sun, but without the moon, the ocean cannot be born. The tides cannot be born.

The world is often described in terms of two poles, such as light and shadow, good and evil, heaven and earth, life and death, and so on. I believe that transversing these boundaries, blurring them, and mixing black and white are what will bring harmony to the world.

While the paintings themselves depict a fantasy world, they do not invite the viewer into the “other side” of the world, but rather, they are created with an awareness that the paintings are trying to bring the viewer into “this side” of the world we currently inhabit.

It is from this position from which I paint and occupy this world.

By illuminating those existences that do not shine, their darkness, the outlines of the shadows are made to stand out in a blurred manner. In the same way, the purpose of this exhibition is to shine light on those in the shadows and to purify those who are also suffering from oppression.

Nos sumus luna
A nocte complent te
Vmbra luceat

(We are the moon
The night to enhance you
The shadow to illuminate)

Volo effundere
Volo implere aquam
Aquam semina
Aqua in patera
Cum nubilum fit, bibimus et reponemus

(We want to pour
To fill with water
Water the seed
Water into the vessel
If it is muddied, we will drink and replace it)

Dive per septem vela
Ad tergum speluncæ
Exspectamus aperire meretricem cum dolore dolorum

(Go under the 7 veils to the depths of the cave
At the cost of pain, we who express our nature as prostitutes are waiting)

Profile

Yumeno Goto

1996 Born in Tokyo, Japan
2019 Graduated from Joshibi University of Art and Design
2022 Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Major in Oil Painting (First Research Laboratory)

Her major honors include: Graduation work at Joshibi University of Art and Design (valedictorian) (2019); the Encouragement Prize & the Memorial Award of Yoshiyuki Kato of Joshibi University of Art and Design Art Museum (2019); the Memorial Award of Mr. O of Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School (2019); Second prize at the 55th Kanagawa Art Exhibition (2019); and more.

Information

Yumeno Goto Solo Exhibition
“Nos sumus luna, Vmbra luceat” (We are the moon, the shadow to emit light)

biscuit gallery
June 26th (Sun) – July 10th (Sun)
13:00 – 19:00 (Saturday and Sunday: 12:00 – 18:00)
*Closed Mon – Wed
Free admission
Produced by biscuit gallery

• English
• 日本語
• 中文

biscuit gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Yumi Nagata, “positive”, from September 9 to 19, 2012. Using the expressions of girls that have been developed in Japanese art and subcultures as a guide, Nagata’s works straightforwardly and unabashedly reflect “self who draws girls and self who denies it,” “desire for transformation,” “desire for approval,” etc. in the world of contemporary painting. This is her first solo exhibition since graduating from Tama Art University this year. In this exhibition, 35 new paintings will be exhibited on three floors, each of which will be themed “positive”, “neutral”, and “negative”, with the aim of projecting and examining “myself painting a girl” through the works exhibited on each floor.

Yumi Nagata was born in Tokyo in 1997, graduated from Tama Art University in 2021 with a major in Japanese painting, and currently lives and works in Tokyo. At first glance, Nagata’s works may seem to follow the lineage of Japanese painting in Japanese art, which depicts girls in an aesthetic or caricatural way, but behind this lineage, Nagata herself says, “Girls, which I have used in animation, manga, and my own Japanese paintings, are a motif that I tend to avoid once I enter the world of contemporary art. As she says, “As soon as I entered the world of contemporary art, I felt that “girls” were a motif that tended to be avoided. In addition, there is an attitude of thinking about how one’s own cultural background and art historical context can be connected.

Nagata has said, “If I were to paint my work as a painting in the contemporary sense, there would inevitably be a contextual restriction that says, ‘This is the way it has to be. She sometimes stands between “the behavior that should be expected of a contemporary painting” and the painfully naive feeling of “drawing girls” that she has held since her childhood, and continues to create her works while being perplexed by the distance from this artistic dramaturgy. When we look at her own problems, there is a story that can be understood by artists of the same generation, namely, as a generation following the Japanese art trends such as Superflat, how to create new works and historicize subcultures and net cultures, which she has accepted as a matter of course and which have become the elements that form the basis of her own life, using what methods and theories. This is a common problem for the generation that has accepted these cultures as a natural part of their lives, not during their rise, but during their establishment.

Nagata has named the works in this exhibition the “layer” series. This is a double-meaning title taken from the unique layered texture created by her use of mineral pigments and the slang word for cosplayers, “layer. Nagata says that the girls depicted in her works are her own alter egos, a kind of self-portrait, and it can be said that the spirit of substitution or the desire to transform oneself into a lovable being is what makes Nagata’s works unique. Sometimes she wears eccentric hats, sometimes her head is shrunk to look like an anime character, sometimes she wears bizarre costumes, and sometimes the girls are dressed in Goth subculture. It may seem as if Nagata is narrating his own world and its story alone, far from reality. Nevertheless, if we compare it to the generation again, for the girls of the generation where animation and manga were commonplace, communication in the form of narrative is a more native method rather than frankly saying something. This is why her paintings are not only art for the sake of art history, but also a way to share the warmth of the world she feels as a story (=character), to connect, and to respond to this reality, just as Felix Gonzalez-Torres once presented works that endorse the sharing of sorrow and mourning. It is a way to share and connect with the warmth she feels in the world as a story (=character), and to respond to this reality. This is clearly a testimony of someone who looks at the times from the inside, and can be taken as a search for and resistance to what her generation can do in today’s contemporary art.

 

Outline of positive, a solo exhibition by Yumi Nagata

Period: September 9 (Thurs.) – September 19 (Sun.), 2021

Hours: 13:00 – 19:00 (12:00 – 18:00 on Saturdays and Sundays)

Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays

Venue: biscuit gallery, F1 – F3

 

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to inquire about the works.