Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “Reflection,” an exhibition of works by Reina Mikame from October 20^th to December 3^rd. The exhibition marks Mikame’s first solo presentation at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, and features eight paintings from the artist’s latest selection of works.

Reina Mikame was born in 1992 in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Oil Painting from Tama Art University Department of Painting in 2015, and is currently enrolled at the Tokyo University of the Arts Department of Painting where she is studying for a master’s in Oil Painting. Mikame’s paintings are created in a manner that appears to drift back and forth between opposite ends of the spectrum of the abstract and the objective. Familiar elements that exist within the artist’s surroundings, the artist’s experiences, and the various phenomena that emerge around the artist are conveyed through means of a harmonious balance between the paint and the brushstrokes. At a glance harnessing a precise air of brevity yet at the same time profoundly orchestrated, the works seemingly evolve into abstract portrayals, while in other moments embody a sense of objectivity.

Through the works featured in the exhibition, Mikame attempts to put into practice the act of re-projecting the presence of light upon the canvas –an essential factor that illuminates all matter and serves to define their existence in a multilayered fashion. There have been various historical endeavors within paintings to depict changes in perception through the irradiation of light, however in Mikame’s works phenomena that can be perceived precisely through the uncertain existence of light are pursued through a series of fascinating strokes. Mikame’s paintings implicate forethoughts towards the conditions that satisfy the medium of painting, and the same time entices viewers to venture into the unique world of her work.