KYOKO MURASE

Through their richly colourful compositions, Murase’s paintings evoke various undertones from the flow of water and its flickering surface, to the gentle breeze drifting through the trees. The texture of the canvas is elaborately controlled through gradations in tone created by using a thin mixture of paint made from dissolving pigment with resin and oil, and a distinct style that leaves traces of her brushstrokes, serving to vividly and tactilely convey the sensations of one’s skin when immersed in water, and the atmosphere that permeate forests and caves. The presence of the figures that often appear within her works are faint and subtle as they diffuse into the touches of the brush depicting the flow of water, air of the forest, and walls of the caves. Such figures seemingly dissolve into the outside world, all the while attempting to listen quietly and make sense of their surroundings.

I visited the park in this new city on several occasions, the first time with my mother...

Following sunlight through the trees that wavered on her back as she walked slowly before me.

I ventured outside again after the deep snowfall, to find that the lively presence of the trees and plants had disappeared.

The white mass filled my retina and flattened all that appeared before my eyes, making me feel as if I could reach far out into its depths.

A woman who I hadn’t noticed in the summer, was sitting down on her own.

With her gentle concrete shoulders, and gazing far into the distance.

—Kyoko Murase

Murase, who in 2016 returned to Japan from Düsseldorf where she had lived for 26 years, currently lives and works in Tokyo. From the sound of cicadas she had not heard for several years, to the trees in the park that differ from those in Germany, the works presented in the exhibition have been created as if sketching her own sensitive responses to the changes in environment -sensations that would otherwise disappear into the everyday if not depicted. Murase’s words that reflect upon her memories on a particular snowy day, further convey her intention to incorporate visual experiences into the world of her work.

Kyoko Murase was born in Gifu in 1963. She graduated from the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in 1989, where she also completed her postgraduate studies in 1989. She subsequently studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf between 1990 and 1996, and completed a Meisterschuler from Konrad Klapheck in 1993. Her major solo exhibitions include Painting and ... vol.3 Kyoko Murase, Gallery αM, Tokyo (2018); Cloud Shapes Made of Mud from the Sea, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (2013); Fluttering far away, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi (2010); Cicada and horned owl, Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka (2007). Her major group exhibitions include Garden of Painting: Japanese Art of the 00s, The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2010); In the Little Playground: Hitsuda Nobuya and his surrounding students, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and Nagoya City Art Museum, Aichi (2009); Red Hot: Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2007); Roppongi Crossing, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2004); MOT Annual 2002 - Fiction? Painting the reality in the Age of the Virtual, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.