Where We Are Group Exhibition Gallery

Curated by Yukiko Nakashima

Where We Are

Where We Are represents four artists, Inna Babaeva, Kenta Furusho, Julia Wagner and Yukiko Nakashima, with diverse backgrounds whose works uniquely address the state of being “in-between”: between comfort and discomfort, life and lifelessness, meaning and meaninglessness, and the legible from the illegible. In today’s tumultuous, fast-paced world, the overwhelming flux of information and questions discourage contemplation. The present norm of exposure to endless images and videos deprives us of the processes necessary to reflect. Human development, furthermore, can only take place through slow transitions. It is by being fluid and embracing the metamorphic states of in-between that we come to understand meanings in the context of our everyday lives. The artists in this show focus on such indefinite conditions in our psyche and perceptions, and bring forth the series of works to induce deliberate thought-processing and introspection.

The unconventional assemblages of glass and mass-produced products such as paper and buckets introduce an unsettling balance in Babaeva’s work. The organic shaped glasses placed on the edge of a box, or clamped as non-functional medical flasks in a series called “This Time Tomorrow” create uncomfortable tensions in the viewers. And the same tension is released when the glasses are surrendered into the open, self-less water in the video called “Word of Mouth”. We can’t help but to ask, “Where is the breaking point and what is the language of non-utilitarian glasses?” Babaeva’s transformation of the materials twists our expectations of the everyday objects, pointing to the vulnerability of what we take for granted.

Furusho’s wooden sculptural series called “Fallen Branches” bear hundreds of scar-like engraved marks on the layers of densely painted surfaces. The effect is visually striking and eerie, as if we are seeing through the peek holes the colorful life the natural material once had. The spontaneous brush strokes in the “Muddying” series create a myriad of entanglements that call to mind the complexities of human consciousness. The repetitious lines form a mesh-like composition that anticipates something somatic and engulfing yet remains elusive. Furusho’s abstract works derive from our psyche and small scenes in life, and they remind us that moments of attention would reveal deeper meaning from the seemingly mundane.

Wagner’s poetic work executed in photography and sound art examines the definitions and the functions of language in our present time. The intentions of the cropped and distorted words are no longer to convey the messages, but to raise questions involving the unintended byproducts when text is misinterpreted or misused in social media. In her photographic series “Draft”, the innumerable words lay unread in the stacks, being stripped of their original tasks. Wagner’s sound piece called “You Are Here” touches on the issues of language barriers, and decommissiones the authority of standard English language by dissecting short sentences into mere sounds. Her attempt challenges the monolingualism in this country where the slightest accents can become targets of criticism.

The gestural marks of Nakashima’s abstract paintings are an amalgamation of broken Japanese calligraphy and smudged Western impasto. The near-graspable masses in one corner are found immediately disrupted by the forces of colors, becoming nameless forms that float, merge and drip simultaneously. The “Matter series” as she refers to them, reflect psychological states or fragments of memories, and they continue to evolve and mutate, preventing any attempt at cohesion, impossible to come together as a whole. Such incomplete states seem to both connote and honor her experiences of mixed-cultural life that can only exist in the “in-between”.