Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is pleased to present “The Weight of Water, The Light that Blurs,” a solo exhibition of works by Reina Mikame from December 15^th 2018 to January 26^th 2019. The exhibition marks the artist’s second solo presentation with the gallery since her previous showing in the winter of 2016, and features a selection of seven new paintings.

From a flower store, the ocean, a bridge, a dam, to sunlight filtering through the trees, Mikame’s new works depict things that commonly occupy everyday life and which are easy to envision in one’s mind. Since the summer of 2018 she has revisited the earliest remembered scenes of her childhood through such subjects, creating numerous sketches while particularly focusing on the memories of the light and atmosphere she experienced on site, the result of which are manifest in her latest selection of paintings.

Mikame has continued to create works that attempt to capture the very moment in which the things within our world are perceived by their exposure through light. Through a structural understanding of light itself and the colors that are derived from it, Mikame has pursued in expressing the multifaceted nature of things upon the canvas, starting with everyday items and furniture that offer tactile engagement through the body, to the glistening surface of water that can only be perceived through the uncertain existence of light. The new works featured on this occasion further incorporate an element of moisture, in which the motifs depicted are developed in a multilayered manner, coupled with the very refreshing and unfading beauty that they harbor. Physical and sensory elements, that while possible to digitize are experienced variedly depending on the place and person, appear to emerge upon the canvas through the key words of “the weight of water” and “the blurring light.”