We are pleased to announce a Solo Exhibition “Kiss for Sadness” by the painter, Rikako INOUE.

She is an undergraduate student in an art university, but has won some awards including Shell Art Award and expanded the range of activities at home and abroad. This is her 1st solo exhibition in LOKO GALLERY.

INOUE has consistently treated organic motifs such as human body or plant from the beginning of her production. The fluid and fresh expression for the body makes us feel emotion of human, or mystery in the body; on the other hand, her paintings have a dry humor that keeps apart from gravity or darkness the similar works prone to have. Her emotion and sense motivate her to draw the paintings; but she sometimes samples the motifs from photographic inventories selected randomly and adopts them in her paintings, or sews some canvases together. Such experimental and objective ways of production are the factors that generate the original humor.

She received an idea from Françoise Sagan’s “Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness)”, and put the title of this exhibition. INOUE says that “Sadness” is the most real emotion for recent herself. The emotion is not always negative. The emotion isn’t a lie, and she finds truth and beauty in the feeling the emotion. For recent her, that is the gist of the life and production. We highly appreciate that you touch the fresh germination of painting that challenges to a new generation.

Rikako INOUE
1997 Born in Tokyo
2020 Musashino Art University Department of Archeology Oil Painting Department Oil Painting Major grade 4
2020 Exchange program student for Berlin University of the Arts

Solo exhibition
2018 “Tacit knowledge” / Hammock cafe (Tokyo)
2019 “Shuranmfish” / GALLERY b. TOKYO (Tokyo)

Group exhibition
2017 “Our Happy ending” / Uptown Koenji Gallery（Tokyo）
2018 ”Echo”/Uptown Koenji Gallery（Tokyo）
2019 “Existence are there”/Okeya（Tokyo）
2019 ”Tokyo Independent 2019” / Tokyo Art University（Tokyo）
2019 ”Authentic” / Uptown Koenji Gallery（Tokyo）

Awards
2018 The 20th Setsuryousya Florence Award, Selected Work
2018 The 47th Shell Art Award, Selected by Tomoko Yabumae
2019 The 37th Ueno Royal Museum Grand Prize Exhibition, Selected work
2019 The 55th Kanagawa Art Exhibition, Grand Prize

Scholarship
2019 Moritani Ikueikai Scholarship for Art student

Other activities
2017 Artist in Residence “Cokun, Artist Village”
2017 The 10th “Straw Art Festival” Niigata City Nishikan-ku and Musashino Art University collaborative exhibition
2017 Super Shiodome Paradise Shiodome Street Festival
2017 SUMMER / Shiodome Shio Site (Tokyo)
2018 Fashion Show “Kikazaru Seeing Connected Yoko”  Management and Planning / Koenji Neighborhood Association (Tokyo)