Perrotin Tokyo is pleased to present Head in the Clouds, a group exhibition featuring thirteen Perrotin artists. The concept of this presentation plays with the idiom "head in the clouds", exploring both its allusion to a dreamy state of mind, as well as the notion of being oblivious to reality or to impending danger. The expression is especially relevant in our current culture of digitisation and information overload, where we tend to walk around with our minds absorbed in a world far away, often unavailable to give our undivided attention to the full reality in front of us. Art calls us back into the here and now, to re-connect and give deeper focus and thought to our sensory experience.
The works presented invite us to encounter the voices of artists from a vast range of cultures, practices, and concerns; at times making us dive deep into their inner world, and at others, urging us to sober up to reality.
The Studies into the Past series by Laurent Grasso transports us into a parallel world existing at the intersection of various temporalities. Executed in a style inspired by Italian and Flemish painters of the 15th and 16th centuries, often depicting celestial phenomena rarely illustrated before the nineteenth century — eclipses, auroras borealis, meteorites — along with strange clouds of smoke, a rock hovering over a landscape, and other mysterious sights, the works constitute a major conceptual project aimed at reconstructing our perception of the reality of another era.
On the other hand, Grasso's Future Herbarium works were inspired by images of daisies that were speculated as having mutated due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, and envision fossilised specimens of such plants, as well as studies of mutant flowers illustrated in the style of nineteenth-century herbariums.
In contrast, Jean-Philippe Delhomme's domestic flowers welcome the viewer to a safe and peaceful space — a step into somebody's place of comfort and rest. There is a loose ease about Delhomme's touch, that perhaps comes from his spontaneous style of depicting his subjects without preliminary sketching, capturing their energies with a distinctive informality. As such, Delhomme demonstrates immense expression through his portraits and still lifes, conveying an authorly perspective which serves as the common thread throughout his practice.
ob explores the dreamy filter of the feminine psyche through the recurring motif of a wide-eyed young girl in her delicate, atmospheric paintings. Drawing inspiration from her roots in the digital age, the artist's signature style invokes elements of manga, anime, and video games - as well as Western paintings - and features milky colours and soft edges. ob has often referred to her creations as different versions of herself and her friends, as young persons "wandering through adolescence full of uncertainty", still unable to fully express their thoughts and dreams.
Similarly drawing on personal memories and lived experiences, Otani Workshop's innovative works are populated by immemorial figures in which subtlety wrestles with strangeness. The faces and figures in his paintings and sculptures embody a naiveté born from unfiltered emotions and actions — a childlike quality emphasised by the simplistic formal language and childish features of his subjects. Imbued with a brazen vulnerability, these exceptionally gentle characters demand our empathy and quiet engagement.
Constructing an Elysian world unphased by the restrictions of gravity or reality, Aya Takano presents a picturesque imaginary realm in which humans are at one with the universe, conversing and living in perfect harmony with other-worldly animals and plants. Taking inspiration and example from classical literature, mythology, and folklore, Takano presents a fantastical land in which the distinction between humans, animals, plants and other beings seem to dissipate.
The odd yet familiar world of Klara Kristalova seems to have a life of its own. Inhabited by characters who are peculiar, alone, quiet, and perhaps lost, there is a vulnerability and humanity about Kristalova's creations that engrosses our empathy. Drawing from Nordic storytelling and traditional myths, the artist seeks to convey basic human emotions such as fear, love, sadness, and guilt, which emerge from her work like memories from our own childhoods.
Gabriel Rico's work is characterised by the genesis of a dialogue between seemingly disparate objects. Combining a range of materials such as rocks, branches, neon, taxidermy, and household tools, Rico masterfully recontextualises familiar objects and materials, creating sculptures that invite viewers to reflect on the relationship between human society and the natural environment, and their respective principles.
Also working with earthen materials, Paris-based artist Johan Creten is seen as a pioneer in the resurgence of ceramics in contemporary art. Working with clay since the 1980s, when the medium was still misprized in the art world, Creten creates works that convey abundance, sexuality, and a sense of the ancient and the primal.
The Glory sculptures succeed Les Vagues pour Palissy — a series created as a tribute to the renaissance ceramic master Bernard Palissy, embodying triumphant images of energy, regeneration, and the cycle of life. These later developed into wall sculptures titled The Glories that evoke a sense of splendour and prosperity with their majestic gold lustre and feminine curvature, whilst invoking a sense of inner peace through their geometric perfection.
Amidst the eclectic works of these wide-ranging artists, we find ourselves traveling around the globe, and through various epochs, subjects, and lexicons; yet with each exploration we are brought back to the deepest parts of ourselves, whether emotional, intellectual, or psychological. Head in the Clouds takes the immobility brought on by the pandemic as an opportunity to address the greater issue of our collective reluctance to stay in the present.
Press release courtesy Perrotin.
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