© Yuka Kasai

Yuka Kasai is a Japanese artist who garnered attention for her “Meiji Monogatari” (Tale of Meiji) which was compared to the Heiji Scroll, Heiji Monogatari Emaki (Tale of the Heiji Rebellion) after it became a topic on SNS as the “Kinoko-Takenoko War” (a pun related to a Meiji Seika sweet). The first solo exhibition by the young artist, “Everyday with playfulness” will be held from March 3rd to 25th at Clark Gallery + SHFT in Sapporo.

ADVERTISEMENT

Yuka Kasai is from Abashiri City, Hokkaido and was born in 1993. In 2016, her “Meiji Monogatari”of Fusuma painting (a picture painted on a sliding paper door) painted as her graduation work at Sapporo Otani University, Japanese painting course, received a recognition after it was exhibited in Sapporo Odori 500-m Underground Walkway Gallery. Then the work travels around several venues including a special exhibition at “Art Fair Sapporo 2016“. Kasai’s artwork, which is purely enjoyable for people seeing Nihonga (Japanese painting) for the first time as it incorporates the techniques of ‘Mitate’ and ‘Yatsushi,’ questions the meaning of the use of art materials in Nihonga, and the definition of Nihonga together with various changes that are occurring nowadays.

In this exhibition, she changes the typical daily landscape into a landscape that seems to be fun, or changes the familiar thing to something else, focusing on the animism (The idea that life is inhabited in things and sympathy for things) underlying her mind from childhood. Approximately 20 works will be exhibited, mainly new works drawn taking advantage of the features of Japanese paintings (natural mineral pigments and foil etc.) .

For example, crow which felt like it conquered the world at the top of a telegraph pole above a large amount of garbage bags, the scene of imported good tea pack (new entry) is nagged by stationary cheap green tea, and the scenery liken the wave pattern seen in the folding screen picture by Ogata Korin to ” flowing noodles”.

Yuka Kasai Exhibition “Everyday with playfulness”
Date: March 3rd – 25th, 2018
Open: 11:00 – 19:00 (Closed on Monday and Tuesday)
Place: Clark Gallery + SHIFT
Address: 2F MUSEUM, South 3 East 2, Chuo-ku, Sapporo
Tel: +81 (0)11 596 7752
https://www.clarkgallery.co.jp