YUKARI KAIHORI – White Whisper – 5 Nov-30 Nov 2018

Flow I

WHITE WHISPER
Yukari Kaihori

White is the colour of the baby’s baptismal robes, the bride’s dress, and the deceased’s robes. In Eastern and Western cultures, we often use the colour white at the rituals when one enters a new stage of life to represent renewal and rebirth.

This tendency to use the colour white may refer to structures of the unconscious mind that all humans share: according to psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s theory of “collective minds,” all people share a set of beliefs, ideas, and moral attitudes that operate as a unifying social force.

The works shown in White Whisper are done in the style Yukari Kaihori has been employing since 2015. She carefully utilizes the chemical reactions between oil and solvent on the surface of the paper by slowly dropping dots of each, one at a time, and letting them dissolve into one another. Through this technique, each dot is unique; so is how it lands on the paper and merges with the other dots. This process mimics the way people react with the fragile, organic environment they inhabit and how this interacts with memory: all of us are shaped differently by our surroundings and society.
   
  

 

‘Flow I is from a series of paintings called Collective Minds that I started in 2015. The abstract paintings were created by dropping dots of paint onto the paper surface by brush. This process reveals how oil painting dots dissolve into each other through a chemical reaction that correlates with the fragile and organic environment we inhabit; and how an individual reacts, shaped by their surroundings and society.

Each dot is unique; and so is the way it lands on the paper and merges with the other dots. For me, this corresponds to an individual’s relationship with society. Each of us is an individual dot in a society, but viewed collectively, a different image is created, whether we are aware of it or not.

My motivation for developing this project is that I am fascinated by how the environment we inhabit shapes us, such that even our inner selves are not untouched. We go through change, moment to moment. I grew up in Asia, South America and North America and am now based in New Zealand. Growing up, I saw different colours of people, houses, children, culture, God, values and family; and I sensed various scents from those streets, people, crowds, buildings and again culture, which are all home to me. Among all those experiences, I felt most at ease in remote nature. I suppose one was trying to hold onto something while adapting to such changing environments and values. I always find the familiar shade and colours in nature.

The title of the series, Collective Minds came from psychologist Carl Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious. According to Jung, the collective unconscious refers to structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species. It is the set of shared beliefs, ideas and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.’
– Yukari Kaihori

Yukari Kaihori was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1980 and since 2011 has lived and worked in Wellington, New Zealand. She grew up shifting from Asia to South America to North America. The notion of home and identity, therefore, has become a recurring theme in her work. Yukari creates paintings to examine the intersections between physical and internal landscapes, with a special focus on how those landscapes interact with memory and imagination.
Yukari Kaihori earned her B.A. in Studio Art from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon (USA) in 2004. She was a Fellow at the Vermont Studio Center (USA) in 2015, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (USA) in 2016-17, and Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Germany) in 2017. In 2015 she was awarded the prestigious Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (NYC). Yukari has exhibited her work in both public and private spaces within New Zealand and internationally.