KUMAZAWA Mikiko "Howl"（TOKYO）

KUMAZAWA Mikiko’s exhibition “Howl” opens on March 11.

Born 1983, Kumazawa received her MA from Musashino Art University in 2008. Having won the “Hisho” Setagaya Art Award in the same year, and the VOCA Honorable Prize in 2011, Kumazawa is a promising young creator spearheading a new generation of artists in Japan.

Works featured in this exhibition, a “howl” of sorts of Kumazawa’s paintings as they are released into today’s world, include “Tree of Ogre’s Children”, the artist’s masterpiece that took over a year to finish. Elaborately drawn with pencil all across the overwhelmingly large picture are countless children embraced by a giant tree, along with human figures nibbling on that tree, and another one trying to protect it.

Four years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake that exposed hidden parts of our social structure. How does the work, depicting the instinctive weaknesses and strengths of people struggling while involuntarily working engulfed by massive powers, appear to us today, as we are still searching for answers?