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Arisa Kumagai, Say yes to me, 2023 Photo: Hikari Okawara

Arisa Kumagai

...apparently God is forgiving

Tuesday, October 31, 2023 – Saturday, January 13, 2023

12:00–19:00

*Closed on Sundays, Mondays and National Holidays.

*Winter holidays: December 24, 2023 – January 8, 2024

Gallery Koyanagi is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Arisa Kumagai, "…apparently God is forgiving" from Tuesday, October 31, 2023 to Saturday, January 13, 2024.

Kumagai's work has always reflected her own background, focusing on the inextricably linked state of wealth and poverty, life and death, and love and hatred. Developing from motifs closely derived from her own family history, which she depicts with outstanding realism, Kumagai's "My yearning to be You," exhibited at Gallery Koyanagi in 2022, featured works based on the angel statue at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

This exhibition, Kumagai's third at Gallery Koyanagi, will feature a collection of her paintings, which mainly feature motifs derived from Catholicism, as well as a booklet of poems written by the artist. Kumagai has been unknowingly influenced by Catholicism; by seeing the Versace shirts sold at her grandfather's boutique; and by finding Velázquez's The Christ Crucified as an inspiration to becoming a painter. She sensed prayer, violence, and power in these motifs and eventually she superimposed them on her own family. She saw the stone statue of Francis Xavier stomping on a human head in a church in Paris, France; and was struck by the disquietude. It was very ironic that the supposedly emancipating religious act could contain violence, and it was amplified by the image of Xavier being a pious clergy. After returning from Paris, Kumagai started going to Catholic church for a deeper exploration and contemplated the relationship between ‘beauty and power’ and ‘violence and prayer.’ It seems that her choice to paint the Catholic motifs is an attempt to connect the private to the universal, as an extension of her past work.

In her last solo show, she exhibited a set of a painting and a poem as a single work. This time, she is presenting a collection of her poems in a single booklet, which viewers can pick up and take around the exhibition site. The poems that are the starting point of this exhibition are crystallization of Kumagai's personal feelings and experiences, facing the past and reality; combined with the paintings, they penetrate deeply into the viewer's mind. While insinuating various problems that people have, and advocating the foolishness of people that people would never forgive, the book concludes with the words, "Say yes to me.” We hope you will be able to pick up the poetry booklet at the venue and experience a new development in Kumagai's production.

The full-page letterpress booklet of poems will be available in a limited edition of 100 at the gallery. Thirteen of the books will be available in a special edition with original drawings.