Reika Takebayashi – You should care more about butterflies

Taka Ishii Gallery Maebashi is pleased to present “You should care more about butterflies,” a solo exhibition of the works of Reika Takebayashi. She will unveil nine new paintings at her first solo show at Taka Ishii Gallery, following her participation in a group exhibition at the same venue in March.

In the spring of 2024, Takebayashi spent three months in Rauma, a port town on the western coast of Finland, as part of the international artist residency RaumArs. The region is known for medieval ruins and time-honored traditional crafts, and the town center, with its colorful wooden architecture, is recognized as a World Heritage Site. In Finland, the period from winter to early summer sees daylight hours lengthen dramatically and plants sprout as the snow thaws.

“The day I arrived in Finland, my surroundings were completely covered in snow. I encountered natural scenery unique to the Nordic climate, such as groves of white birches, frozen lakes shimmering under brilliant sunlight, and boulders towering well above my head. I learned that during the Ice Age, the entirety of Finland was submerged under a thick layer of ice and sank below sea level. As a result, stones from that era remain largely unchanged today. During my stay, I walked on the frozen sea, climbed to the tops of rocky crags, and reflected on what came before me, what will endure after me, and those who are absent. I learned that today, this land continues rising gradually higher above sea level. In my works, I aimed to quietly capture, contain, and convey the whispers of the ages and the landscape that continues its ceaseless evolution”. (Reika Takebayashi, October 2024)

Takebayashi, who has consistently produced abstract paintings incorporating natural phenomena from her surroundings, found that coexistence with the nature and environment of a distant land deepened her artistic thought process. The works newly presented at this exhibition show a renewed focus on the artist’s sympathetic reactions to the distinctive behavior of the terrain, and how these accumulated interactions evolve within her memory and visually re-emerge in the form of paintings. Layers of pale color delicately applied to canvas evoke the ever-changing hues of the sky, plants swaying in the breeze, and the textures of the rock that forms the land. Each work’s title is the name of a site she visited during her residency or is derived from snippets of casual conversation with local people, maintaining Takebayashi’s connections to these motifs as she explores a unique visual vocabulary that leads our imaginations toward far-off locales. We hope you will take this opportunity to appreciate her remarkable works.

Reika Takebayashi was born in 1998 in Osaka Prefecture and lives and works in Kyoto Prefecture. She graduated in 2020 with a BA (major in oil painting) from Kyoto University of Art and Design, and completed her master’s degree (MFA) in the same field at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2022.

Gallery hours Wed-Sun 11 – 7 pm
closed on Monday, Tuesday and National Holidays

Exhibition Duration 24.11. – 27.12.2024

www.takaishiigallery.com

Location:
Taka Ishii Gallery Maebashi
Maebashi Galleria 1F, 5-9-1 Chiyoda-machi
371-0022 Maebashi-shi, Gunma
Japan