MIYAKO YOSHINAGA is pleased to present a new solo exhibition, In Between by Manika Nagare (b.1975), a Japanese artist based in Tokyo. This is the artist’s third solo exhibition in New York and her first presentation at the gallery’s Upper East Side location. The exhibition will run from December 10, 2020, to March 31, 2021. The gallery hours are from Wednesday through Saturday, 11am – 6pm (except for Christmas and New Year holidays).
Manika Nagare‘s color abstract paintings derive from ephemeral phenomena in the real world. In her previous work, she emphasized the superb beauty and fearsome force of natural landscapes to express her feelings about Japan’s catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis. In this new body of work “In Between,” Nagare also retraces her feelings about a real event, but this time it is very personal – the death of her father, a sculptor who passed away two years ago at the age of 95. The title of the show “In Between” is a signifier for the hypothetical space where life is reaffirmed while death is approaching. She remembers seeing an intense light and feeling how exquisitely the plants were spreading their leaves, when the lives of her loved ones were near the end. Inspired by this vision, the artist exclaims “Now, the world is uniformly conscious of life. Now is the time to find the light and feel life.”
In these works, Nagare strives to release her complex emotions much like nature flows in an irreversible order. Her dramatic use of unmixed colors such as orange, pink, green, and blue brightens and darkens each space like fire and ice. Her biomorphic lines flow with smooth but unpredictable rhythm like water. Her brushstrokes on canvas are as light as a feather caressing skin. In Nagare’s painting, all these evocative elements coexist organically as in nature itself. Furthermore, she conceives her painting as a two-way mirror to invite the viewer to become immersed in the painted image. This effort has been evidenced especially in the public art projects she has produced for over a decade. From flat to spatial, from visual to corporeal, from intellectual to visceral, Nagare’s exuberant work expresses open-ended vistas, this time, literally in an “In Between” realm.
Manika Nagare was born in Osaka in 1975 and raised in Kagawa, Japan. She studied painting at the Joshibi University of Art and Design. She has been exhibiting her work in Japan, the United States, Turkey, and France among other international venues. Her work is represented by numerous international public and private collections such as the Takamatsu City Museum, Takamatsu, Japan, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan, and the Kocaeri University Museum, Turkey. In addition to painting, Nagare’s work also includes a number of public art projects on which she closely works with curators, designers, architects and community boards. In fashion, her paintings have been applied to textiles as well as costumes for dancers.
