Artist : Yasco Kanehira
Genre : Paintings
Period : April 26 till May 20
Everyday, 10.00AM till 6.00PM
Location : Ganesha Gallery
Four Seasons Resort at Jimbaran Bay
Tel: 701010
In homage to the visible hours of the day, the Japanese artist, Yasco Kanehira, brings her own style and philosophy to the themes of emotion and human activity in her elegant exhibition “Between The Sunrise and Sunset”. Kanehira was born in Okayama, Japan, in 1975. She began her exploration of the world in 1992 when she attended school in Germany as an exchange student. On her return to Japan she studied at the prestigious Kyoto City University of the Arts, where she graduated in 1998 with a Major in Painting. Resident again in Japan, Kanehira found herself “uneasy with the realization that one of the ironic side effects of living in a modern consumer society was that the more one got the less satisfied one felt”. Veering towards the spiritual Kanehira journeyed to India to search for an alternative to materialism, only to find herself again “uneasy with the alternative paradigm”. After a successful exhibition in Jaipur, India, entitled “All Day All Night Suffering”, Kanehira continued her spiritual journey, finally settling in Bali in 2001, an island that she says is located “between the material world and the spirit, rules and chaos, no god and many gods”.
Each of Kanehira’s paintings is imbued with her unique personal perspective at the moment they are made. They are the creations of ‘situations’ which stimulate what she calls ‘creative feelings and vibrations’. Her paintings depict her emotions and physical activities at various stages of the day, and can be regarded almost as a visual diary or journal. Kanehira’s slightly figurative abstract expressionistic paintings reveal her early training in Germany, but beneath the rigorous formalism can be found wonderful brushwork, and exquisitely balanced forms and shapes, that can only reflect her Japanese sensibility. Kanehira’s paintings are created in clear, vibrant colors that illuminate the canvases in glowing blues, aquas, pinks and reds.
Into the surface of the paintings Kanehira also scratches words or phrases that are meant to enhance or emphasize the emotions or activities depicted. The use of Text in paintings is not new. Numerous art movements have incorporated, and experimented, with Text in various ways. In particular, a group of artists, in the early 1960’s, established an art movement entitled ‘Visual Poetry’ that endeavored to explore the relationship between word and image, aiming to create a universal form of visual communication. Some visual poets emphasized the conceptual aspect of their work, while others visualized the poetic writing graphically, but the overall goal was to create a system of art wherein words, signs, color, images and text would freely interact, and the artworks could be a direct and immediate tool for communication. The resultant works were to be regarded as ‘Visual Poems’. It is in this esoteric art style that Yasco Kanehira’s work truly belongs.
In her accompanying catalogue, along side the name of each painting, Kanehira has placed a small haiku-like statement that further amplifies each work. These simple phrases reveal a deeply sensitive poetic sensibility. In the randomly grouped small paintings ‘1A thru 1P’, these 16 delicate works interact and resonate with each other as the daily passage of time is evoked. Viewed in conjunction with the haiku-like statements that accompany the works, such as:
“
The world is still there.
Do not try so hard to become a good mother”.
an elusive narrative takes shape that entices us into Kanehira’s intimate world. A world that abounds with much joy, sadness, suffering and hope. These particular works are indeed a fine example of ‘Visual Poetry’, but, personally, I feel that Kanehira has not really taken the work far enough! The text and images, to my way of thinking, should be more interconnected on the pictorial plane. Kanehira appears to be experimenting with this form of ‘Visual Poetry’ but is reluctant to relinquish the “Printed Word”, and let her poetry stand alone on the canvases. The simple words or phrases she provides on the canvases are merely indicators of what she actually feels.
Yasco Kanehira’s art is deceptively simple in form and harmonious in color. Her works are like complex multifaceted gems that can be enjoyed for their scintillating beauty or contemplated as manifestations of an unpretentious but highly poetic and sophisticated artist. This show is most challenging.
