Ji-Min Huang & Toshiko Takeuchi “Wandering Light” 27.01 – 24.02.2018

January 27, 2018 10:22 pm Published by Sebastian

From January 27th through February 24th 2018, Gallery WM is exhilarated to present:
Wandering Light
by
Ji-Min Huang & Toshiko Takeuchi

“Wandering Light” is the culmination of an intense communicative collaboration between two very special artists; Dutch-born Ji-Min Huang (Utrecht, 1978) and Japanese-born Toshiko Takeuchi (Tokyo / Oita, 1949). Although a couple of generations apart, a seemingly cultural and linguistic divide and leading very different lives, these two artists have found mutual understanding in a poetic dance of visual expression. Where Huang’s mostly chalk- and charcoal-drawn pieces organically ebb and flow in blacks and whites and in-betweens, Takeuchi’s more sculptural work geometrically oscillates in concentric rings of origami-like, hand-folded paper snippets.

Beneath the purely visual explorations of the myriad methods of contrast, Huang and Takeuchi have endowed this largely black & white exposition with an intense emotionality that hints at the drama and pathos that rage underneath the – usually – smooth exterior that each and every one of us prefers to present to the outside world. You can simply feel it; this is not only a labour of love to visually express the verbally inexplicable. It is above all, a labourious frenzy of creative expression and artistic production; a decidedly desperate squeezing out of all the creative juices that these two artists can muster. Again, it is intensely tangible.

Wandering Light has resulted in a monochromatic kaleidoscope of shapes and shades, flowing lines and jagged edges, explosions and simpers of black and white and dark and light. Both Ji-Min Huang and Toshiko Takeuchi achieve staggeringly different works of art, yet the combination is exhilarating; an elegance without losing a fibre of the raw vitality that characterises real labour and true artisanship. Wandering Light brokers the divide between the vitality of light and the melancholy of inevitable darkness.

BIOGRAPHY JI-MIN HUANG
Ji-Min Huang (The Netherlands, Utrecht 1978) is a visual artist who uses photography, drawing, sound and the way she observes. This all comes together in her continuing art project called “Infinite memories”.
Since 2017 she put her focus more on her drawings mostly in black & whites. The monochromatic drawings are figurative or abstract maps of emotions. It is strongly related to the experience of constant mourning. Her motivation comes from her visual impairment. Visual perception is a great source of inspiration. Hence, Huang has also started creating small books in Braille.
Infinite memories is an ongoing project in which different emotions come together. Her drawings are tangibly powerful and vulnerable at the same time.

BIOGRAPHY TOSHIKO TAKEUCHI
Toshiko Takeuchi (Tokyo / Oita, 1949) is an artist specialised in various fields of art-making, such as painting, stage-design and costume-design. Since 2013 however, Takeuchi has shifted her focus to paper and now works predominantly with this mesmerising material. Through her paper works, Takeuchi has discovered an incredibly vibrant, creative, prolific yet peaceful art world and praxis; one which she has whole-heartedly dived in to. Using many different kinds of papers (such as pages from books, magazines, advertisements, copy paper or origami paper), Takeuchi builds a large variety of objects that grab her fascination.
As Toshiko explains: “I grew up as a child making paper objects to play with as toys. Returning to this medium many years later, as an adult, my relationship to the things I make from paper has developed in range and complexity. I find that the layering and combining of papers – be they coloured or monochromatic – creates a sense of narrative; a social story that becomes something akin to memory.”
This collaboration with Ji-Min Huang has added extra layers of ruminations and questions concerning this fascinating medium;
“How does a paper story pass down from one generation to another? And how does that paper story change its form as time goes by? A paper story is a living thing and thus constantly changes its form and meaning depending on the papers used, added or retracted.”
[….]
“Life is always related to death and I am afraid of what will come; that inevitable and essential part of life. […] In the days that I am still alive, I am constantly folding papers and searching for my right to exist. … The title of this exhibition with Ji-Min urges me to pursue vitality, and yet I often get lost, ending up in an instantiated crisis. A transparent plane is made painful by strong light and confrontational dark light; these concepts contrast yet form a symbiosis. But still I step forward, again, again and again…”