We are pleased to announce the exhibition “Light of Detour” by the painter Chie KODA. She has attracted attention by the activity based on participation in residence program at home and abroad, or winning VOCA prize 2017. Her mode of production shows various changes in recent years.

One of peculiarities of her works is: that various viewpoints are integrated on one painting. The most scenes or persons that she draws: are things she has seen by her eyes actually. But It’s rare for her to draw one moment on one painting. For instance, when she was working part-time as life guard at pool once, the thing which had burned in her retina for a long time is: the sight of crowd moving in water, and the gurgitation. She often handled the motifs in her paintings, but in some of the works, she added other sights of mountains or forests which are in her recollections timely: or social elements such like political　demonstration or internet to sight of the pool. The various viewpoints which connected with different time and space get new beauty and strangeness through synthesizing by KODA’s realization; so present us the sight of “pool” that can’t exist nowhere but on paintings.

In recent years, KODA has a tendency to develop more extensive field of view on the paintings; keeping the trait of plurality of viewpoint. A distant view which the sun or sky rule; intermediate view which is composed by crowding of little houses, roads; and a close‐range view where plants grow as if it shows existence of painter’s viewpoint. The works where these sights are integrated into one; seem like calm landscape at first glance. But in these production processes, KODA has been strongly conscious of self-awareness of her visual line, furthermore, awareness of things like individual “habit” which exists in the moving of eyes; but not combining impressive scenery simply. So the awareness is amplified to her method of drawing, humanity, thinking, and social position. Moreover, KODA has pursued production like giving “some visual line” to every elements of scenery that she can see now; to the good things, also to undesirable things. In her painting, in a distant view and also in a close‐range, everything is given equivalent balance of color and figure. Here, she directly shows her will: to harmonize her changing viewpoints or every elements surrounding her, and to affirm them in one light on the painting. So to speak, the equivalency which dosen’t clearly indicate the leading part in the painting; lets the viewers roam in the painting with their own viewpoint, and have a function of letting them aware of own viewpoint standing face to face with the painting. Through various interactive effect, KODA’s paintings acquire more multitiered viewponts.

In this exhibition, we show her latest works including one painting which was drawn based on residence program in Shibuya, Tokyo; and on “A little dusk adventure” she encountered there. The program is rare for KODA who has acted mainly in provincial residence. And we show her past works in which we can read her changing of field of view to the present. Please come in touch Chie KODA’s dynamic works that make us feel bloodline of the modern and contemporary paintings such like impressionism, cubism, or surrealism; and in the production, she steadily pictorializes her own contemporary / present “Life”.

ARTIST PROFILE: Chie Koda