ERA Gallery is thrilled to present an exhibition of works on Paper by Rikako Kawauchi, curated by Domenico de Chirico.
"ペインティングナイフで線を削る感覚が、鉛筆で線を引くスピード感や体感、感触と近しいからです。私にとって、すっと線を引けることはすごく重要なので、何にも引きずられない、自分をダイレクトに乗せられる感覚があるペインティングナイフは、肌に合っているなと思います。例えば筆だと、絵具がかすれたり、絵具に引きずられたりするところがありますが、ペインティングナイフや鉛筆には、物質感に左右されずに線を引ける感覚があります。" - 川内理香子
“The feeling of sharpening a line with a painting knife is close to the speed, sensation, and feel of drawing a line with a pencil. Dragged by anything is a good match for my skin. A painting knife or pencil, you can draw lines without being influenced by materiality.” - Rikako Kawauchi
This exhibition is intended to provide background to the artistic research presented by Kawauchi in ‘The voice of the Soul,’ furnishing the viewing public with a more expansive look at Kawauchi’s approach to the medium of drawing by placing on view fifteen drawings by the artist.
Kawauchi’s central focus on the externalising of the internal machinations of the body through the act of tracing linear forms onto the various mediums she confronts finds its most essential expression of her drawings. Here long threads of pencil ellipse around tiny watercolour heads, caressing, encompassing and nurturing them. Her pencil bodies seem to juggle and dance with these curious entities, expressing the individual body’s eternal struggle to digest its carnal interaction with foreign bodies, be they other people, animals or food.
