川島優: PATHOS

首爾

2024.01.13 - 02.18

Whitestone Gallery Seoul is pleased to announce the exhibition of Yu Kawashima, celebrated for his exceptional talent in seamlessly translating traditional Japanese painting into the realm of contemporary art. Kawashima obsessively paints emotionless human figures with ritualistic implications of the abyss within modern society as his central motif in his artistic narrative.

Under the pale, expressionless faces of the girls drawn by his meticulous and sensitive brushstrokes, there is always a meandering spirit behind them with bitter-sweet secrets in their eyes. Carrying on the torch of traditional techniques, Kawashima makes use of traditional material such as natural pigment, Japanese mulberry paper, India ink, and infuse them into his contemporary image. Since his student days, he has been particularly keen on studying the color black and innovatively developed methods to induce chemical changes in these materials. His multi-dimensional approach to color enables him to explore a myriad of expressions on his canvas, creating a captivating visual tapestry.

川島優

Born in Shizuoka, Japan in 1988, Yu Kawashima studied “Nihonga” (Japanese painting) at Aichi University of Arts and he continued his study there and graduated with a doctoral degree in 2017. In 2014, Yu Kawashima made a dramatic debut with his work Toxic, which he submitted to FACE, public competition held by Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art and won the grand-prix award. The prize-winning work was acquired by Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art. Kawashima’s works are also collected by Toyohashi City Museum Art & History, Aichi University of the Arts, Shizuoka Hirano Museum, and more.

In his first solo exhibition in Korea titled Pathos, Kawashima wishes to present the emotion of humans’ tendency to bounce off the anxiety in front of us and try to live. Modern society is overflowing with visual information media such as television, magazines and SNS. Having spent his childhood in the countryside, there was a hidden discomfort in the artificial and inorganic world deep inside Kawashima’s heart, and he harbored vague concerns about the future along with the changes of the times and the anxious energy of contemporary society. In the face of today's pervasive uncertainty, dominated by an indefinite anxiety, Kawashima advocates for a collective reexamination of oneself and the surrounding environment. For the artist, the act of drawing becomes a transformative and introspective journey, offering a medium to navigate the complexities of these chaotic times. In the exhibition, Kawashima invites viewers to join him in expressing inner selves visually as a profound means of exploring and understanding one's existence amid the tumultuous currents of the present.