MIO SHIRAI

This exhibition presents paintings from what has been an especially productive few years for Shirai, including many featuring geometric lines, parabolas and spirals. The title Swing Down Cosmic Chariot is taken from the old Negro spiritual Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, which begins with the line ‘Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home’—the chariot here possessing symbolic significance as a means of transport to another place.

For Shirai, who says she makes paintings and sculptures ‘as exits to other worlds that differ from the here and now,’ painting and sculpture consistently act as a portal, or perhaps an escape hatch, to another space and time, simultaneously manifesting as that same place, breaking through into our own realm. Don’t miss the latest offerings from an artist who employs painting to unpack the structure of the world, and cause new movement, and new cycles, to arise there.