Take Ninagawa is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibition of new drawings on fabric and paintings by gallery artist Yoriko Kita, “Almost Holiday.” Based in Kyoto, Yoriko Kita is known for her “Blend” series of works that combine together different elements from hundreds of snapshots the artist has taken in her daily life and during travels around Japan and the world. Yet whereas “Blend” reflects a collage sensibility of juxtaposing heterogeneous materials and ideas, “Almost Holiday” marks a new shift in Kita’s practice as the works on view further explore how these disparate elements interact with each other in a shared space. The main body of works in “Almost Holiday” are a series of large-scale charcoal on fabric drawings of mountainous landscapes comprised mainly of imagery from the Japan Alps. These fantastical landscapes feature foreboding peaks and plunging ravines accentuated by waterfalls, rolling cloud banks and flocks of migrating birds. Evoking the ink paintings of the Chinese and Japanese traditions, they trade in the rigid demarcation of the camera’s viewfinder for the hemispheric perspective of the human eye and imagination. In their delicate draftsmanship and use of material, they also embody a sense of ephemerality as the contrast between light and dark, line and shading settles like a fine dust on the untreated fabric, in some cases reflecting the texture of the surface on which she was working. Kita says that she views these works as primitive stories in which the narrative evolves from the landscapes themselves. “The works are about living things moving through the ‘inanimate’ landscapes,” she says. “They are about how these different habitats communicate with each other.” The exhibition also marks Kita’s return to oil painting after a period focusing on drawing and watercolor. Two small canvases feature human figures posed before backdrops in which architecture dramatically transforms into open horizons. Also on display will be small drawings in charcoal, graphite and color based on photos of dioramas from the American Natural History Museum in New York. Yoriko Kita graduated from the Mixed Media Course, Saga Art College, Kyoto, in 1997. Recent group exhibitions include “Exhibition as Media” at Kobe Art Village Center and “Portrait” at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art in 2007. This is the artist’s second exhibition at Take Ninagawa. * The text provided by Take Ninagawa.