Exhibition
MIYABI 雅: Intransigent Elegance
8 Jun 2016 – 2 Jul 2016
Event times
Tuesday - Friday: 11 am - 6 pm
Saturday: 12 - 4 pm
All other times by appointment
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- Unit 12
- 21 Wren Street
- London
Greater London - WC1X 0HF
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Closest Tube Stations: King's Cross St. Pancras (Northern), Russel Square (Picadilly), Chancery Lane (Central)
FIUMANO PROJECTS is pleased to announce MIYABI 雅: Intransigent Elegance, the second UK solo exhibition by Japanese artist Takefumi Hori.
About
Takefumi’s practice is rich and varied in its execution with gold leaf being his media of choice. Working onto a base coat of gold acrylic paint, Takefumi layers clear gel mixed with pigment followed by gold leaf. The process of cutting, sanding and scratching then begins, repeated over and over again.
His additive layering process with gold combined with the continual stripping back and scraping away of areas of paint results in work that progressively unfolds to the viewer over time. Each layer, revealed or concealed, gives the frontal surface of the painting temporality and visual impact. These are not works to be simply glanced at, the nuances and gradations warrant a more thoughtful and pensive gaze.
MIYABI 雅: one of the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideals. In modern Japanese, the word is usually translated as elegance and/or refinement.
Takefumi’s balanced and harmonious paintings can be best described as Miyabi. His fundamental understanding of composition and the way our eyes, and therefore our minds, ‘read’ results in works that are not only elegant and refined but also an expansion of the vocabulary of painting. The combination of the different Gold karat grades (eighteen, twenty-two and twenty-four) enables him to achieve a remarkable depth and variety of effects.
Whereas Takefumi affixes no definitive prescribed meaning to gold he embraces its diverse historical and cultural associations; from Western wealth and opulence to the more East Asian allusion to enlightenment and inner peace. These are references all can share and they will each have a different degree of importance unique to the individual.
Takefumi Hori was born 1978 in Tokyo. Having completed his studies in classical and contemporary calligraphy in 2004 he moved to New York where he continues to work from his vast studio in Brooklyn. Takefumi’s works can be found in international private and corporate collections including Westwood Global Investments, Boston; Bloomingdales, Chicago; and ACTIV Financial Systems Inc, Yew York.
