Chihiro Kabata: Closed with Eyes Opened

A year ago, We held a group show of Kabata sisters at Art Front Gallery, which was then called Art Front Graphics. This time, will be the first solo exhibition for Chihiro Kabata to be presented our Gallery. Our space has changed, and so has her work. It is more profound than a year ago. We also remember her participation in the MOT Annual 2011 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. She has moved on again since then, and is completely ready for this exhibition at the Art Front Gallery with yet more new work.
In one thing she has been consistent. This is her method of scratching at her material with a ballpoint pen. It is as if she is searching for something invisible or, in scarring the heavy black plane of the oil painting, that she is leaving traces of her body. She is no longer a person who is satisfied with only two dimensions.
Even at the MOT Annual, it was clear that her large-scale installations were engaged outside themselves with both space and people. Those pieces gave viewers a sense of the artist’s physical body through their inner voice and traces of action. Now she seems to be opening her work up to others. Her work does not appear to tolerate others, yet, at the same time, it still seems to invite viewers into deep mists which previously only the artist had been able to enter. In those mists, where just voices are heard, we feel as if we are walking in search of some unseen person. Standing in front of her work, we confront ourselves and sense something tangible before us, although we cannot even perceive its outline.
Kabata’s work is almost like a mirror. Perhaps it is the profoundly deep colors she uses that enable her to create this impression. It may be our selves that we are struggling to see. In front of Kabata’s work, we may be looking into our own inner worlds.

Toshio Kondo, Art Front Gallery

>For Kabata's CV and more works visit here.