Kazuyo Kinoshita was born in Kobe, Hyogo in 1939. From around 1973 to 1980, she employed an electronic reproduction technology called xerography (blueprint photography) to create works that question the nature of human perception. For this body of work, Kinoshita photographed a piece of paper with a figure drawn on it, which was deformed by folding and distorting, and then she further drew a plane figure of the same line or circle on top of the image. What arises from this distinctive dual structure, the overlap of the three-dimensional image and the two-dimensional image, the digital and the analog, is a visual and cognitive misalignment that embodies the certainty or ambiguity of “existence.” This disparity induces those who “see” to ask the profound question, “What is existence?” and makes us muse upon the act of “seeing.” Kinoshita’s work examines “seeing,” and it can be described as an identification of how “I” am involved in the world.
Around 1982, She began working on new paintings while continuing her unique approach to creation after Kinoshita started to feel that the relative understanding of things by juxtaposing one thing against another could not explain the existence of “being” itself, and even the ground of her own existence was becoming less and less clear. The brushstrokes and colors in Kinoshita’s paintings convey the trajectory of her hand movements, revealing her deep interest in sensibilities based on her physicality. In the oil paintings of her later years, she added the process of rubbing and wiping with a cloth after applying paint. The brushstrokes and the traces of the wipes, which emphasize movement, provide the paintings with tension and resonance between the pictorial surface and the exhibition space. Applying and wiping off paint can be seen as proof or declaration of the existence of the movement itself and the painter who executes, while at the same time denying the existence of the painter’s movement and the work. These two movements are necessary and equally valuable actions to create the work’s very existence. Kinoshita successfully represents both, which possess conflicting meanings, as essential and equally important traces of the creation of “existence.”
【Selected Public Collection】
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo,
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art
Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, Kyoto City Museum of Art etc.
---------------------Works
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TitleBoundary Thinking D S-12DSize91 x 116.5cmYear1970Mediumoil on canvas -
TitleBoundary Thinking B S-14B 65-BSize91 x 116.5cmMediumoil on canvas -
TitleUntitledSize96.5 x 58.6cmYear1975Mediumsilk-screen and colorfelt-pen on photopraph -
Title‘77-KSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph -
Title'77-LSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977 -
Title‘77-WSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph -
Title‘77-XSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph -
Title‘78-4Size69.3 x 96cmYear1978Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph -
Title'86-CA371Size42.5 x 33.3cmYear1986Mediumoil on canvas -
Title'87-CA390Size162 x 130.5cmMediumoil on canvas -
Title'92-CA685Size163.7 x 131.7cmYear1992Mediumoil on canvas -
TitleLA-CA713Size146 x 112cmYear1992Mediumoil on canvas
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TitleBoundary Thinking D S-12DSize91 x 116.5cmYear1970Mediumoil on canvas
-
TitleBoundary Thinking B S-14B 65-BSize91 x 116.5cmMediumoil on canvas
-
TitleUntitledSize96.5 x 58.6cmYear1975Mediumsilk-screen and colorfelt-pen on photopraph
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Title‘77-KSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph
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Title'77-LSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977
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Title‘77-WSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph
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Title‘77-XSize71.6 x 102cmYear1977Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph
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Title‘78-4Size69.3 x 96cmYear1978Mediumcolor felt-pen on photograph
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Title'86-CA371Size42.5 x 33.3cmYear1986Mediumoil on canvas
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Title'87-CA390Size162 x 130.5cmMediumoil on canvas
-
Title'92-CA685Size163.7 x 131.7cmYear1992Mediumoil on canvas
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TitleLA-CA713Size146 x 112cmYear1992Mediumoil on canvas
