Artist: Kyoko Murase

Taka Ishii Gallery presents “Only Yesterdays,” a solo exhibition of the works of Kyoko Murase. Her 13th solo show at the gallery features seven new works.

In her recent practice, Murase has focused on monochromatic fields and exploration of their expressive potential. In this world of single colors, color appears to transcend the chromatic and take on the qualities of light. The artist describes her process as analogous to “gradually weaving fabric,” and indeed her brushstrokes traverse the canvas in a manner evocative of crawling, flowing, or groping for traces of space and presence, imbuing the works with unique textures. In Murase’s paintings, tangible objects exist alongside more sensory and intangible elements – wind, light, sounds, smells – all given equal attention, and we are given a window into the artist’s sensibilities as she interweaves these disparate elements with her brush.

“Only Yesterdays”
Every day, the same view from the same spot. In the foreground, the balcony lined with potted plants I have tended with care. Beyond the balcony a stream flows, and on the other side weeds sprout in colorful profusion. In spring the meadowsweet blooms white, and cherry trees along the opposite bank blush with pink blossoms. My field of vision is layered like a mille-feuille, and its balance subtly shifts from one day to the next. At night it all vanishes, leaving only the sound of water approaching.

Kyoko Murase
November 2024

“Yesterdays” refers to the everyday moments that inspire Murase’s creative process: scenes and objects she encounters, and emotions she experiences, in daily life and while taking walks. These familiar elements, distilled into the act of painting, serve as both emotional grounding and a creative lodestar as she seeks inspiration in her surroundings and within herself.

…As I paint, the canvas seems to lighten. When unease strikes, I listen closely, finding reassurance beneath overturned stones on the riverbank, in the smell of a dry room, in a darkened tunnel and the light at the end of it. Wherever I may be, things connect, appear, and disappear in an endless cycle.

Murase captures memories of experiences on canvas. The resulting world, imbued with uncertainty and always in flux, compellingly engages all the viewer’s senses.

Kyoko Murase was born in Gifu City in 1963. She graduated from the Aichi Prefectural University of the Arts in 1986, where she also completed her postgraduate studies in 1989. She subsequently studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1990 and 1996, and completed a Meisterschuler from Konrad Klapheck in 1993. In 2016, she returned to Japan from Düsseldorf, where she lived for 26 years, and is currently based in Tokyo.
Her major solo exhibitions include “park”, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2019); “Painting and … vol.3 Kyoko Murase”, Gallery αM, Tokyo (2018); “Fluttering far away”, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi (2010); “Cicada and horned owl”, Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka (2007). Her major group exhibitions include “Body, Love, Gender”, Gana Art Center, Seoul (2023), “”tomodachi to”. With friends”, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2021); “Living in Symbiosis with Forests and Water”, Nagano Prefectural Art Museum (2021); “Luxury dialogue: Episode 3 Light is Like Water”, Okazaki Mindscape Museum, Aichi (2020); “Aichi Art Chronicle 1919-2019”, The Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art (2019); “Pathos and Small Narratives: Japanese Contemporary Art”, Gana Art Center, Seoul (2011); “Red Hot: Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection”, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2007), “Roppongi Crossing” Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2004); “MOT Annual 2002 – Fiction? Painting the reality in the Age of the Virtual -“, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.