Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present, “Veda / Vendarta,” a solo exhibition of works by Kisho Mwkaiyama from July 8 to September 2, 2017. The exhibition marks the artist’s second solo presentation at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery since his previous showing last year, and will feature 14 new works on canvas, as well as 4 recent works that use wax as their material.

My works convey the prayer that dwells within the soul enveloped by the body. The abstract light of the soul is an invisible material that breathes together with life while kaleidoscopically repeating its radiance. Within the same space of this exhibition, I present my recent Veda series created using wax, and the Vendarta series that appropriates acrylic medium and canvas. Both series serve to connote an “image of profound light.” Light and darkness are indeed inseparable from one another, and by existing together, heighten its glow and shade. Vendarta is the reflector of light –the material of chaos, which manifests through the multiple layering and overlapping of the light and dark medium. The profound darkness that relates even to the celestial bodies and esoteric perspectives of the universe; naturally exists as if illuminating the soul with prayer.

Kisho Mwkaiyama

Mwkaiyama was born in 1968 in Osaka, and currently lives and works in Tokyo. Mwkaiyama spent his childhood in Mount Koya, recognized as one of Japan’s most prominent locations of esoteric Buddhist temples, and as a child had found himself enticed by the tranquil environment of his surroundings and the Buddhist art that existed within it. This childhood experience had essentially lead Mwkaiyama to concern himself with the fundamental presence of light, a motif that he has consistently worked with since the beginning of his artistic career. The series of works on canvas entitled “Lunar” that was presented at last year’s exhibition as a new attempt in his practice, had through it captured the fleeting faintness of natural light (the foremost transitions in light) to create works that transformed in correspondence to the surrounding atmosphere. In his new series of works “Vendarta,” Mwkaiyama endeavors a more multilayered experiment of depicting light by means of expressing at their very foundation, the darkness that resides as the background and depth of light. “Veda,” the works appropriating wax, are presented in a manner as if facing onto “Vendarta,” and captures the presence of light that dwells in the darkness such as the light of the moon and the stars. The aspects of light depicted through both works emerges before our eyes as encompassing important implications distinguished from the artificial light that dominates our contemporary times.