EXHIBITION

DMOARTS is pleased to announce Kana Otsuki's solo exhibition "Empty Shell".
Kana Otsuki is a Kyoto-based artist who has exhibited throughout Japan.
Consistently working on the theme of "chrysalis," she has been vigorously expanding her range of expression to include her signature series of portrait images of young girls, abstract art expression, and illustration.
This is his third consecutive year and third solo exhibition at DMOARTS.
In addition to approximately 50 original artworks, this exhibition will feature and sell new My First Art works produced by giclee printing, a high quality fine art printing method, as well as postcard sets and other goods.

I have been working as an artist since 2007, and this year marks my 8th year.
All of my works can be explained by the concept of "chrysalis," which is the most important theme in my work.
I think of the butterfly chrysalis as the cohabitation of the "death of the larva" and the "life of the adult".
Since the larva dissolves itself in the chrysalis, it is impossible to tell from the outside where the death of the larva begins and at what stage it becomes an adult (new life).
Life and death are elusive, yet they "exist" as a single living organism.
In this light, I feel that many people living today are very "chrysalis-like.
It was after the earthquake that the theme of chrysalis appeared strongly in my works.
After the earthquake, I consciously incorporated the chrysalis motif into my work as an image of hope for Japan's rebirth.
We are now living in the chrysalis period.
We are now living in the chrysalis period, a period of preparation for our eventual emergence as butterflies.
However, the vague emptiness I feel in Japan today is like being inside an empty chrysalis.
I have somehow realized that the chrysalis, which I thought was a symbol of hope, is empty.
Four years after the disaster, I have come to realize that Japan has been searching for a solid "identity" (the contents of the chrysalis) ever since the end of World War II.
This is similar to the image of an "adolescent girl" who is often compared to a chrysalis.
I myself spent my girlhood in the past, and the sense of struggling to survive in the midst of emptiness seemed to me to be similar to the sense of living in modern Japan.
Modern Japan is both chrysalis-like and girlish.
It wants to believe that it has all kinds of potential, but it is still a nobody.
Yet even within this empty chrysalis (Japan), we certainly exist.
This emptiness is no one's fault, and each of us must constantly be asked and continue to answer the question, "How do we live" in this world?
That is the reality of life.
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For me, creating a work in this chrysalis shell is like creating a "mirror" reflecting the present age and ourselves.
Somewhere in there, we are capturing the contemporary Japanese image.
If you find something solid in it, I will be happy as an artist.
It may be the content of a chrysalis that may eventually become a butterfly.

KanaOhtsuki

KanaOhtsuki　Profile
Born in 1984, Kyoto-based artist.
She expresses the contemporary through girl motifs, mainly in acrylic paintings.
She started her career in 2007.
She has participated in various exhibitions both in Japan and abroad, and holds a solo exhibition about once a year in Japan.
She is also expanding her activities as an illustrator and was featured in "ILLUSTRATION 2014" in 2014.