Chicago Works: Mika Horibuchi
Video
Video Description
How does a painting blur the line between art and object? Chicago Works artist Mika Horibuchi explains the tricks and slips in visual perception seen in her work during a tour of her studio.
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I've been thinking about edges of paintings as indicators of how we think about frames and framework, where an image stops and begins.
There's a fake shadow that goes on, so this bottom part is much darker.
It makes it into more of an object, in a strange way.
So I've been looking for different duck-rabbits, and then taking that illustration and then turning them into physical rubber stamps. And then, painting the stamp.
All of my paintings are presenting themselves as objects in one way or another.
Even with the watercolor paintings.
My grandmother, who lives in Japan, wanted to learn how to paint and draw.
And she's never painted or drawn in her whole life.
I sent her some watercolors and basic brushes.
And then a few months later, she sent me these photographs in the mail.
Photographs of the paintings that she's done become source material for a series of paintings that I started.
It's paintings playing the role of objects. That screens, and curtains, too, aren't meant to be looked at, rather, our inclination is to look through them.
It teeters back and forth this–these two realms of being both an image and an object or one or the other.
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Exhibitions
- Chicago Works:Mika Horibuchi–
- Short A vertical painting portrays a close-up view of a light blue, satiny fabric.
- Long This hyperrealistic painting captures the variance in light and dark tones in the reflective fabric, which is folded vertically upon itself like a curtain drawn aside. At the bottom of the painting, the fabric stops, with a slightly different texture on its finished ends.
Programs
- Walk & Talk: Mika Horibuchi and José Esparza Chong Cuy–Talks
- Long A shiny blue curtain, painted in extreme detail to show creases and folds, hangs from a thin brass rod that stretches the full width of the painting. The curtain is pulled to the right to reveal two thirds of a highly detailed bouquet of tulips, poppies, peonies, and other flora. A black butterfly with red and white markings rests on a leaf near the curtain with its wings open. The background is dark and an arch is barely visible giving the impression that the bouquet is floating between the curtain and the arch.
- Curator Tour: Mika Horibuchi–TalksFree With Admission
- Short A muted watercolor painting of two red and green fruits with large leaves.
- Long The painting is affixed at its four corners, centered against a larger, roughly textured tan surface. The two fruits are set against a light background, casting mauve shadows against an implied surface. Both the fruits themselves and their leaves share various shades of sage green and pale orange, while the base of the fruits is a more vivid salmon red. At the bottom right corner of the painting appears the date "2017/05/16" in small numerals.