Existence
21 December, 2023- 22 February, 2024
Yidi Art proudly presents the inaugural duo exhibition of the Japanese artists Keiko Aikawa and Yuka Umino titled “Existence,” opening on 21 December 2023. The exhibition “Existence” takes you on a trajectory where two female artists encounter and embody their discontentment with the current state of everyday life while pushing the limits of human existence by blurring the boundaries of fixed images and bodies using their paintings, in hopes of symbolically fulfilling their unsatisfied desires and constructing a better future despite the given social standards and expectations.
The face is the most visible thing in everyday life, and the act of destroying certain parts of it is like a way to escape from a fixed image.
-Keiko Aikawa
Aikawa refuses to accommodate the existence of the given ordinary everyday life by exploring and creating invisible images in portraitures. Such an approach embodies her unique perspective while giving a new existence to ordinary portraitures. The artist abstracts and complexifies the portraits by incorporating linework and brushstrokes unapologetically. Additionally, similar to the approach of cubism, she utilizes bold flat shapes and forms to fragment the human visages. The approach helps bring various perspectives of the faces together in the same pictorial space and further accentuates the complexity of human emotions and desires.
My work is based on the discomfort of being able to exist only with this body, which is my own body, which I have not been given the right to choose.
-Yuka Umino
Similarly, another artist in the exhibition Yuka Umino distorts human beings in her paintings but instead focuses on human bodies. Umino utilizes the burgeoning dynamic brushstrokes in her work to symbolize the instability of sensations and personalities, the interrelated behavioral, cognitive and emotional patterns that are modifiable, that extend beyond the physicality of bodies. Umino therefore reclaims her own desired existence by embodying sensations and personalities in her work, while expressing her discontentment with forfeiting the right to choose her own body from the very beginning.
‘Existence,’ by definition, is the state of being real or participating in reality. However, what does it mean to exist in this world? How does existence differ from person to person? Does your existence depend on societal expectations? Society has imposed expectations on all people, yet they are mostly fictional. Ironically, these expectations are passed down from generation to generation and are deeply ingrained in our minds. People are therefore naturally forced to exist under this fictional confinement to fulfill their roles in society, reinforcing all kinds of stereotypes and injustice. Our existence is as such constantly engulfed by social standards and expectations, without truly compromising our own desires and needs. Their tableaux radically address the universal existence of people in a world in which we accept the values others have created. The dialogue between Aikawa and Umino speaks unyieldingly to the resistance to the current state of their everyday life through the act of destruction and rebuilding in their pictorial space. The exhibition embodies their desire to control this given existence and aspiration for an ideal future where people are no longer confined by societal expectations, while inviting viewers to ruminate on the idea of existence based on their own profile.
Chuang Tzu the ancient Chinese philosopher once said, “Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.” What does it mean to exist in this world to you? Can we ultimately attain a state where we can stay true to ourselves regardless of social standards and expectations, just as Chuang Tzu’s philosophy?
