Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “Looking at the color,” an exhibition of works by Reina Mikame from February 15^th to March 14^th. Marking Mikame’s third solo presentation at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery following “Reflection” (2016) and “The Weight of Water, The Light that Blurs” (2018), the exhibition features a series of new paintings centering on plant motifs.

In the summer of 2019, Mikame made numerous sketches on paper and small boards while journeying in Europe. In her previous exhibition (“The Weight of Water, The Light that Blurs,” 2018) she traveled to various parts of Japan to revisit and sketch the earliest remembered scenes of her childhood, creating paintings based on the memories of the light and atmosphere she experienced on site. While such attempts have become more profound as a consequence of her sketching ventures overseas, she continues to sincerely address themes that many painters have engaged with throughout the history of painting, from ways of treating "color" itself as an absolute condition for the creation of painterly works, to the manner by which to develop paintings upon the canvas.

Although things become colored by being illuminated by light, enabling them to be visually perceived and understood, the state of the light is by no means stable. Since the colors of leaves and fruits in plants fluctuate depending on the type of light in which they are seen, the colors used to paint them on the canvas should also be open to many possibilities. As a result of these considerations, the works depicted, while shifting back and forth between realms of abstraction and concrete, seem to express the vitality of painting through their lively and animated brushstrokes.

Reina Mikame is also currently taking part in the exhibition “VOCA 2020: The Vision of Contemporary Art,” held at The Ueno Royal Museum from March 12^th to 30^th.