Yukari Kaihori: Blue Fancy (2019)

Yukari Kaihori's Blue Fancy lies at a borderline or transition point between east and west, between aleatory and deliberative, and between conscious and subconscious.

Kaihori's painted surfaces are created by the traditional method of nihonga, in which dampened paper is glued at the edges of wooden surfaces, the water stretching the surface to a canvas-like tautness. Upon these wet foundations, the artist creates paint blooms by the chance actions of dilute watercolour. Once the paper has dried, a similar process is carried out with thin oil paint. The resultant clouds of soft colour become the emotional backdrop to the more deliberate mark making which follows.

By the process of allowing the chance patterns to inform the artist's creative process, we gain images which are maps of subconscious geography, satellite images of the soul. The works are at once both abstract and imbued with a depth of half-glimpsed meaning. The coalescing forms, in their rich deep hues, tug at the corners of memory and recognition.

Are we staring into the vacuum of a stellar nebula, or gazing into the heart of a thunderstorm in Blue Fancy III? Are there faces staring from the surfaces of Pink Notion and Blue Fancy I? The images are simultaneously remembrance of physical spaces and the unreliable traces of fallible memory.

In creating these transitional bridges between the real and the imagined, the artist draws us to our connections with nature and our often neglected relationship with it. Our rational faculties are not devoid of connection to the environment but rely upon it, our thoughts being merely garbled reflections and interpretations of the outside world.