Loftiness aestheticism artist Yukari Arisaka is painting the "world" which can be translated to pictures by the painter. It has also called "Composition of Existence" by Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

I always think that a strong belief to paintings might be harbored in the heart of a quiet Arisaka. Arisaka wrote "Catching the infinite image from the information, which might be thrown away before it is perceived by unconscious and felt by subconscious, is the mission which can be achieved only by abstract art." in her doctoral thesis for the graduate school of Tama Art University.

The Surrealist caught a image of subconscious which is just a part of unconscious. On the other hand, to perceive a image of unconscious from the world that spreads inexhaustible and uncertain and to realize it as picture with indefinite line and point, layers of colors. That might be a place where Arisaka aims.

Since eliminate the psychological influence which color brings, her works in 2000's were painted in monochrome. Also a form and a matiere were inhibited. When the viewer looks into her works, the viewer tried to be connected to the inner world of oneself and find a meaning by overlapping sense and memory at same time.

After 2010, Arisaka began to express a sensuous and colorful screen which reminds a fertile and sublime image with colors like red, orange or purple. Arisaka is intending to express the "Unconscious Image" by abstraction. Sometimes also it seems to express a figure of small animal like a pigeon or a rabbit. It reminds me of a primitive form like the scene of the Greek mythology where Gaia, Tartarus and Eros are born from Chaos or the scene of the Old Testament "Genesis" where God creates the light in the darkness, separates the waters and the earth and creates the animals.

In her new works "Petrifaction" and "Flowers of Mist" for this exhibition, there are figurative motives of a swan, a human or a flower. The figure not only limits the meaning, but also it expands the communication between a picture and a viewer. This is the new development of Arisaka. Even if these images were the expression of a figure or a mental crosses Arisaka's mind, that reminds the construction of a magnificent world and surely suggests the hidden possibility of Arisaka.

Suguru Igarashi / Curator of Sompo Japan Museum of Art