Kawamura Etsuko: Look at the Night, Listen to the Night

It has been five years since Shibunkaku hosted Lotuses by the Thin Scrolls, Kawamura Etsuko’s solo show where she took on the format of the hanging scroll without any preconceptions or art historical baggage. For this new exhibition, Kawamura worked on a diametrically opposed format, using wooden board and canvas measuring 30 and 20 cm square.

Look at the Night, Listen to the Night is painted in oil over black leaf, the first time Kawamura uses this technique. Irises is painted in oil on canvas. The works bristle in a beauty of nature unique to Kawamura yet compared to Lotuses by the Thin Scrolls they can be arranged in more varied ways: vertically, horizontally, in a checkerboard pattern, one at a time or in groups of multiples. The exhibition is complemented with works in other formats such as the stunning two-panel folding screen Blossoms, done in oil on canvas. We cordially invite you to enjoy Kawamura Etsuko: Look at the Night, Listen to the Night.

Artist’s Statement:
“Moon and the stars shining on a winter night are throwing faint shadows to the ground. The blue moonlight and shadows intersect, starting to create a quiet spectacle of the mysteries of the night. When looking outside my atelier in the deep of the small hours, I imagine dragons roaming through a ravine full of lotus flowers, playfully hovering in and out of my canvas. My desire to witness those immense things just reminds me of how small I am when painting. Yet I was guided by Yūshō’s masterpieces of Dragons and Haga Tōru’s book, To the Forest of Poetry, to discover the true heart of Japanese beauty. That being said, I am delighted the works included for this new exhibition are shown in the beautiful exhibition spaces of Shibunkaku.”