New Artist Picks: Wall Project
Aimed at introducing thw work of promising young artists, the Yokohama Museum of Art's "New Artist Picks" series has been held since 2007 in the Art Galleries and other spaces within the museum.
With the museum now closed for renovations, two special "Wall Project" edetions of the series will be held to present the work of young artists on the construction wall facing Art Square in Grand Mall Park in front of the Yokohama Museum of Art.
In the first installmnt, we will intrduce the work of Murakami Saki (bon 1992), who works primarily in copperplate print. Murakami's work depicts motifs born fromher personal memories and traumas using techniques such as lift ground etching, whereby lines are corroded in the copperplate by applying poster colors by brush.
Murakami sees her production as an act of "scarring the copper plate" and states that "the lines engraved on the copper plate are scars in the heart, the ink that fills them is blood, and the paper place on top is the bandage." The work's simplistic appearance belies a foundation of raw emotion, the artist's fear, resentment, desire and love for modern society. Another characteristic of the work is that animals such as dogs, horses, birds and insects are central motifs. While animals are portrayed as threats to humans, they also appear as lose allies with whome pain is shared. In this way, Murakami's work does not just depict trauma, but is an attempt to heal it.
In this project, a total of 18 works, including two new works and 16 produced between 2015 and 2021, will be shown. As we seek out new ways of living based on the esperience of the pandemic, Murakami's themes of death and rebirth, and human-animalrelationships remaind us of the importance of recognizing weaknesses and of engaging the world with a sense of humility.
