BLUM is happy to current こをろこをろ koworo-koworo, Okayama-based artist Hiroka Yamashita’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, and the artist’s first in Los Angeles.
The work that Yamashita presents in こをろこをろ koworo-koworo exist inside adjoining transitional areas: between the otherworldly forces of delusion and on a regular basis actuality or between the data cultivated in instances previous and cases of historic amnesia within the current. Inserting ghostly figures in serene landscapes, the artist reconsiders and offers harmonious kind to those stark contrasts. Via her portray type—which straddles abstraction and figuration—and material, Yamashita examines a core idea of animism by exposing the seraphic within the on a regular basis. The exhibition title, an onomatopoeia that sounds just like the stirring of the ocean and refers back to the origin delusion of the Japanese archipelago, insinuates the mining of ancestral customs, giving these deliberately forgotten tales a contemporary embodiment. Conveying pervasive folklore anew, Yamashita’s works on linen refashion long-established parables in dazzling tones and strokes.
The ethereal or hazy high quality of Yamashita’s brushwork additional characterizes the worlds that she’s constructing—emphasizing the fantastical parts inherent to every vignette. With delicate marks made with oil paint, the artist alternates filling parts of her canvas with both ethereal translucency or sharp opacity—by means of these finishes successfully discerning between what belongs to the terrain of actuality or the creativeness. In 《戸開》Tobiraki (2024), as an example, a spectral determine hovers outdoors of a sepia-toned cave, its kind marked solely by the sheerest software of white pigment.
Like a lot of the imagery in Yamashita’s current work, the scene depicted in 《戸開》Tobiraki is taken from Japanese mythology. Separate works depict parts of the well-known story of Amano-Iwato whereby the Solar Goddess Amaterasu secluded herself in a cave, discouraged by the violence she noticed from her personal brother, thus plunging the world into darkness. To coax the goddess out of hiding, the opposite gods gathered outdoors of the cave to bop and have fun—as proven in Yamashita’s portray 《ウズメ》 UZUME (2024). Amaterasu, curious concerning the laughter she heard, peaked outdoors of the cave and was captivated by her reflection in a mirror that had been positioned there for this function. This scene is depicted in Yamashita’s 《鏡 (アマテラス)》 Mirror (Amaterasu) (2024).
“This exhibition primarily options works associated to Bitchū kagura, a conventional dance observe rooted in Shinto rituals that has been handed down for generations within the Okayama, Bitchū space,” Yamashita says. Thought to derive from the occasion of luring Amaterasu from her cave, kagura is a kind of Shinto ritual ceremonial dance. In most kagura performances in Japan, there’s a portion devoted to the story of Amano-Iwato. Yamashita’s portray 《猿田彦》Sarutahiko (2023) depicts the jovial motion of this choreography by means of a frenzy of brush strokes and dripping paint, as a delicate define of a tree emerges from a pool of blade-like grass. The customized’s connection to the unearthly can also be referenced within the higher left of the portray, the place a darkish determine seems to hover.
These conventional Japanese myths haven’t typically been referenced inside Japan within the wake of World Conflict II. Deployed as propaganda in the course of the warfare, mythology within the nation was then related to poisonous nationalism. Reduce off from parts of their historical past, Yamashita and others of her technology have begun to revisit these tales, parsing them from their unfavourable utilization to raised perceive the at the moment missed pillars of the society through which they dwell. Yamashita says of the exhibition, “Slightly than depicting a typical mythological scene, I wished to create works that contact upon forgotten deities and the hidden historical past that has vanished from the middle stage… Simply because the title refers back to the starting of the nation, I hope these work additionally signify the brand new starting of a greater world.”