We are pleased to inaugurate this new space with a solo exhibition by the talented Rinko Kawauchi, coinciding with the release of her book M/E published by Delpire.
Rinko Kawauchi captures the evanescence of everyday life with a vivid gentleness. Her work, imbued with poetry and delicacy, invites us to explore the mundane with the wonder-filled gaze of someone discovering the world, and to become aware of the invisible connection that exists between all things and all beings. The exhibition, which brings together three series, allows us to fully immerse ourselves in her unique universe.
Kawauchi's latest series, Untitled (2024), is being shown in Europe for the first time today. Inspired by the desire to offer a thought for the victims of current conflicts, Kawauchi photographed flowers in black and white. She then added touches of color to the watercolor, which contain, beneath the seemingly hopeless layer of war, a prayer for future relief.
This is followed by Here and Now, constructed in echoes of Shuntaro Tanikawa's poems. Small creatures feeding on leaves, the depth of night, the sensation of the last rays of sunlight signaling the end of a day in the park: Kawauchi captures the living in all its complex simplicity.
Finally, the M/E series — whose two letters (acronym for "Mother Earth") also form the word "me" — starts from a (re)birth: as a woman, as an artist too, after an experience in the bowels of a volcano visited in Iceland in 2019, experienced as a return to a mother's womb.
Shadow, light, water, and breath infiltrate and burst forth from the smallest corners of her photographs, reflecting the immutable impermanence of life. Ultimately, it is the strength of life that is celebrated in Rinko Kawauchi's work: a message of hope resolutely turned toward tomorrow.