ETSU EGAMI: VOCA2020 shown in The Ueno Royal Museum
Etsu Egami is an international artist currently being very active in London, Germany, Chicago, and Beijing. Based on her overseas experiences, her consistent production activities on the theme of communication have been evaluated internationally. Thus, she was nominated for the VOCA exhibition at The Ueno Royal Musem by the recommendation of Megumi Hatai, a curator of Chiba City Museum of Art.
Etsu Egami was born in Japan, in 1994. She studied abroad at HfG Karlsruhe (The Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design). in Germany, Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. Currently, she studies at the Central Academy of fine arts for a doctor's degree. She reconsiders the possibility of communication from her wide experience of oversea, and studies from various academic fields such as linguistics to sociology, anthropology, and philosophy including the origin of languages. Particularly, she devotes herself to a reconsideration of society by words. Her "project" gained international acclaim for the site-specific field survey and documentation. And those factors have deepened the theme of "communication" and highly praised internationally.
As the youngest artist, she was shortlisted for a sovereign art foundation as an Asian Art Prise2019 finalist, also as an outstanding Asian artist, her works were collected by the Moscow Garage Museum of Art. Most recently, solo exhibitions such as "In to the light… Etsu Egami solo show" (Germany), "Dialogue beyond 400 years" (London), "This is not a Mis-hearing game" (Beijing), "Dialogue-4,000 years-Etsu Egami Exhibition" (Chiba City Art and Culture Newcomer Award Winning Project) were held. In addition, her graduation works received a prize and collected by the Museum of the University.
VOCA exhibition (Vision Of Contemporary Art) was founded in 1994, aiming to introduce new and outstanding artists to the world in the future. The exhibition invited senior curators, university professors and critics from national important art museums in Japan to recommend "unique and inevitable works, outstanding artists with international vision and strong expressive force" under 40 years old.
VOCA exhibition has great influence in the Japanese art field. The recommended artists in 1994, Takashi Murakami, Nara Yoshitomo in 1997, are not only the leaders of the later Japanese art field but also famous all over the world.
Comments on Egami's works by Megumi Hatai
"Dauntless yet delicate strokes. Figurative or abstract? Animate or inanimate? Depending on the distance and angle at which this painting is viewed, its appearance, even the impression of the coloring, changes quite significantly.
Egami was born and raised in Chiba. She went on to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing to study oil painting from an East Asian perspective. Motivated by actual experiences of mishearing due to differences in language, she continues to produce works on the theme of cognition through communication. Having portrayed others with creativity inspired by trivial discords in her everyday life, Egami confronts her own childhood in this work.
There exists a gap we all come up against when confronting someone, be it another person or even ourselves. Egami takes communication as her subject, not in an effort to bring one another closer but rather to acknowledge that fundamental distance. Through careful examination of that gap and confirmation of its border, there are also forms that surface of their own accord. Egami's thinly painted translucent canvases allow us to plunge into the depths of the artist's never-ending pursuit of communication."
Please visit and take a look at Egami's works on display at the Ueno Royal Museum.
VOCA Exhibition 2020 Vision Of Contemporary Art
Venue: The Ueno Royal Museum
Date: March 12th (Thu) – March 30th (Mon)
Open: 10:00 – 18:00 (No close between above date)