Arisa Nakahara, Ephemerality and Sparkle

EVENT DESCRIPTION

JPS Gallery is delighted to present Ephemerality and Sparkle, a solo exhibition of Arisa Nakahara, on view at the gallery’s location in Hong Kong. The show marks the international debut of the artist, presenting a series of new paintings that explores an influential personal experience that shaped her attitude towards life and death.

In the presented show, Arisa explores her interest in the concepts of life and death, showing a series of monochrome and coloured paintings that documented her quest in finding answers to her problems and doubts. Through the stories told by the women in her portraitures, Arisa reconciles the revelation of the intractability of fleeting time and the coexistence of life and death. By reflecting on her personal experience, she discovers the meaning of life and cherishes the present by living life to the fullest.

Academically trained in traditional Japanese painting, Arisa synthesises traditional painting techniques with lived experience and English literature, exemplifying her position as a woman in the globalised world. In Birthday (2021), she drew her motifs from Lewis Carroll’s famous fantasy fiction Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Relating the distorted time and space in the story to reality, Arisa finds herself assuming the role of the White Rabbit character who is constantly concerned about time. Transporting through the rabbit hole, Arisa invites the audience to explore the fantastical yet finite everyday life.

Combined with her contemporary woman sensibility, in this series of deeply personal paintings, Arisa pushed the limitations of traditional Japanese paintings with her contemporary perception, inviting the audience along to her journey in finding the spark in the mundane.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

In her portraits, Arisa Nakahara filters traditional Japanese ink wash painting techniques through a contemporary cosmopolitan woman sensibility. By weaving the cultural influences of the East and West together, Arisa creates imageries that build from the foundation of traditional Japanese paintings and shed them in the light of the present.

Many of Arisa’s works drew influence from her personal experience, approaching through the lens of a contemporary woman in the world, creating motifs and themes that reflect the lived experience whilst breaking the limitations of the traditional genre.

Born in 1984 in Okinawa, Japan, Arisa earned a BFA and MFA in Japanese Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts.The artist is currently based in Tokyo.