Slow Art Asia 2020
Chae Eunmi | Hiroko Otake
February 8 - August 29, 2020
There’s a concept called “Yobitsugi” as part of Kintsugi (Mending with Gold) tradition of Japan. In their venerated Tea tradition, a Kintsugi craft master mends a broken bowl with Japanese lacquer and gold, thereby making the repaired bowl more valuable than before it was broken. Yobitsugi extends this tradition further. Yobitsugi collages different fragments from different origins. Thus, it is possible to bring objects of two nations, even warring nations together by connecting their fragments with gold.
This new two women show at Waterfall can be called a “Yobitsugi” exhibit. Two cultures, Japan and Korea, historically two acrimonious nations, are connected by Kate Shin, founder of Waterfall Mansion & Gallery, who is herself of Korean descent. “Considering the Butterflies” puts together an exhibit to bring two women artist, Chae Eunmi, a Korean artist from Seoul, and Hiroko Otake, a Japanese artist from Tokyo, to consider peace and provide a new realm of beauty in contemporary art.
Chae Eunmi’s works are durable constructions of aluminum and wood, then applying gold, mother of pearl on top and creating a chess board patterns of crossing lattices. Each cube is refractive, and she writes: “From the surface of the panel which is seen between the shadows of the cubes are delicate and complex particles of colors. These rise up where the colors and delicate reflections and shadows commingle."
These cubes repeat, capturing both the emptiness and profound presence at the same time; and as installations, they are infinitely scalable. She focuses on butterfly patterns and colors in this exhibit, and yet the patterns are created to imagine infinitesimal butterflies, filling the empty spaces all around her art.
She notes: “Hardships and wounds in life are healed through the light and they become flowers and butterflies which bring beautiful aroma and bring new life. The light comes from the darkness and arrives into a brightness.”
Butterflies represents to her a path beyond our brokenness and fractures. Hiroko Otake’s works, then, serves as a perfect tandem. Curated and installed with precision and elegance at Waterfall, they create a dynamic movement, a movement of grace, a wave toward the wider world.
If Chae Eunmi’s works are solid, Hiroko Otake’s works are done on paper and other materials, such as a mirror, that invoke fragility. Hiroko Otake uses traditional Nihonga (Japanese style painting) materials, using minerals, gold, silver (some tarnished) and other materials that have been refined by the Japanese history of painting, which dates back to the 8th century. The materiality, and beauty of her surfaces demands the viewer to slow down, and truly “see” the nuanced layers.
Chae Eunmi studied in her formative years at Tokyo University of the Arts, where Hiroko Otake also mastered Nihonga at doctorate level. Hiroko Otake was recently selected to present her work to Pope Francis’ historic visit to Japan, notable in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She wrote in her letter to the Vatican:
Psyche is a piece from a series of work I started producing in March 2011 after the Great East Japan Earthquake. In this series, I depict blue butterflies. After learning that the word psyche means butterfly as well as spirit in Latin, I portray the spirits of the victims in the form of butterflies, praying that their spirits will be at least purged. The blue, the color that I use to a great extent, is important color in religion as well - a color that evokes the image of the sky, the space, and the heaven, all of which I believe signifies purity.
Art responds to our trauma filled world by bringing beauty. Art can collage disparate elements together, even conflicting elements to make beauty. Such is the path of Yobi-tsugi; such is a path to "Consider the Butterflies"
Written by Makoto Fujimura
