perspective

biscuit gallery (Shibuya Ward, Shoto), a contemporary art commercial gallery located on Shibuya Ward Shoto Culture Street, will hold a two-person exhibition “perspective” by two fine art artists, Koga Miura and Nanami Inoue, who completed their master’s degrees at Kyoto University of Art and Design this spring.

The exhibition runs from July 29, 2021 (Thursday) to August 8, 2021 (Sunday). ※Extended through August 9 (Monday).

 

“What” is Absent

Nanami Inoue and Koga Miura each impose their own rules and create paintings.
This approach is shared between them, but the reasons for imposing these rules appear to differ. In other words, Inoue sets rules as a response to her “attachment to diligence,” while Miura sets rules as a resistance to his “laziness,” and through this they each seem to be finding a connection between themselves and the act of creating paintings.
Inoue’s “attachment to diligence” is driven by a compulsive feeling of “must do,” yet she is always lacking the “what.” To drive the subject and predicate without an object, she establishes a place where “I do,” namely setting the “graph paper” as the site where “I do.”
Meanwhile, Miura’s “resistance to laziness” forcefully gives “purpose” in resistance to the “laziness” that everyone possesses—the constant desire not to do. The “purpose” here is not inherent to Miura. Just as “what” is absent from the beginning for Inoue, here too it is absent. Precisely because it is “absent,” a provisional purpose—”random numbers”—is given, and he serves it.
Writing it this way might sound like I’m negating both of them, but that’s not the case at all. Rather, I myself am aware of both “attachment to diligence” and “resistance to laziness,” and I think many people are positioned somewhere on the gradient between these. Or rather, one could say that resistance to laziness is itself attachment to diligence, and in the end, aren’t they the same thing? In fact, when tasked with writing this text, I was honestly “…” and my hand wouldn’t move at all due to my own “laziness,” but somehow I pushed back with a “Come on!” and now I’m diligently writing this… back to the point.
It’s not that “content” always precedes and contains “what,” with “form” existing to express it. Yet the expression created by the “absence” of “what” for these two is not the pure extraction of form alone as formalism aims for.
Rather, isn’t it that form alone emerges afterward precisely because they expressed the “content” of “what being absent”? And isn’t this a manifestation of a passive formalism, different from formalism that actively discards “what”?
However, I do not understand the term “passive form” as something negative. Rather, I believe it is in this passivity that the potential of these two artists lies.
In other words, I dreamed of the possibility that instead of orthodox academic development of formalism, they could develop an alternative form that takes as its “content” the state of contemporary humanity and the world that “cannot possess what”—as its content.

Mitsuhiro Ikeda

Koga Miura “d,49” Acrylic, panel, linen 210×297×30 mm
Nanami Inoue “Sufu 6” Acrylic paint, cotton fabric, panel, 515×364×30mm

Artist Profiles

Koga Miura

Creates mainly two-dimensional works with themes of “chance, randomness, the boundary between handwork and mechanical work, and labor.” The method of composing images based on instructions from random numbers eliminates hesitation that arises during the creation process, reflecting unconscious and pure action. Just as mechanically drawn lines acquire their own unique expression, he creates works to re-examine mundane everyday life.

-Biography-
Born in Tokyo in 1997

2021: “2020 Kyoto University of Art and Design Completion Exhibition” (Kyoto University of Art and Design)
“exhibition from shu” (Y gion)

2020: “WEB SPURT 2020” (Kyoto University of Art and Design Web Magazine ‘Uryū Newsletter’)
“COLORS” (Kobe Motomachi Poporin-dō Gallery)
“HOTEL ANTEROOM NAHA” Permanent Exhibition (Hotel Anteroom Naha)
“Shell Art Award 2020” (National Art Center)
“Shibuya Style Vol.14” (Seibu Department Store Shibuya)

2019: “2018 Kyoto University of Arts Graduation Exhibition” (Kyoto University of Arts)
“HOP 2019” (Kyoto University of Arts)
“OPEN STUDIO” (Kyoto University of Arts)
“EXHIBITION UNKNOWN EYES” (THE STORIES)

2016: “Nozoki” (gallery&)

Awards
Shell Art Award 2020 Selected
2020 Kyoto University of Art and Design Completion Exhibition Graduate School Award

 

Nanami Inoue

Repeats the act of drawing lines relentlessly, preserving traces such as line shifts and paint accumulation that emerge within this repeated action.

-Biography-
Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1996
2019: Graduated from Nagoya University of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts, Western Painting Course 2
2021: Completed Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduate School, Master’s Program, Art and Craft Division, Oil Painting Field

2021:
“DAWN-EXPOSITION 2021.04-” Ginza Tsutaya Books GINZA ATRIUM / Tokyo
“2020 Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduate School Completion Exhibition” Kyoto University of Art and Design / Kyoto

2020:
“From The Youth at Higashiyama” Seishun Gallery / Kyoto
“S-2Ds” ex-chamber museum / Tokyo
“ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO 2020” Kyoto Prefectural Museum of Art / Kyoto
“ANTEROOM NAHA_Phase 2020” ANTEROOM Naha / Okinawa

2019:
“SWING~Reiwa 1st Year~Gallery Ohrin Selection Nanami Inoue・Ryosuke Saito・Rina Tanaka” Gallery Sakuralin (Hitachi Izumo Grand Shrine) / Ibaraki
“Nagoya University of Arts Graduation Exhibition” Nagoya University of Arts / Aichi

Awards
2021 “Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduate School Completion Exhibition” Excellence Award
2019 “Nagoya University of Arts Graduation Exhibition” Excellence Award Brighton University Award

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