The Evanescence: Mariko Kawashima @ Gallery Le Deco

I wandered down to Shibuya the other day to take a look at an exhibition that had caught my eye in Metropolis magazine. Mariko Kawashima is a young Japanese artist who has spent some time in the States and this week she has a solo exhibition at Gallery Le Deco in Shibuya. The work on display falls broadly into two categories ~ oil on canvas and works assembled created with pastels, tracing paper and pins.

The oil paintings have lots of pale blues, whites and greys and there are plenty of curve-like forms, and broken shells in the more abstract pieces, and paintings of shells together with pieces of shell and newspaper featuring in others.

The other works had pictures (often women) drawn on to tracing paper that had been cut out and assembled and mounted on a thick paper background with pins, which created a kind of 3D effect, as can be seen in the picture on the promo postcard featured above, which is called Daydreaming Close Up.

The two types of work were quite different in style, but have a kind of ethereal mood and create a mood of fragility and solitude, which allow the viewer to escape into a mood of reflection.

Definitely worth seeing if you get the chance, but you'll have to hurry as the exhibition only runs until tomorrow. Click on the gallery link for details.