MIDUKAGE – Double Reflection
Apr. 19 -May 11
Planning : Ryohei KAN (artist /SLAP general director)
Cooperation: iti SETOUCHI, Setouchi L-Art Project (SLAP)
Venue: iti SETOUCHI
photo（1st-13th) : Kensuke HASHIMOTO
For Kawamoto, who was born and raised in Hiroshima Prefecture, which faces the Seto Inland Sea and is rich in water sources, water has been a familiar and interesting subject since childhood. Kawamoto, who majored in crafts and studied dyeing at Hiroshima City University’s Faculty of Art, experimented with materials and created a unique style of expression using foam binder to depict ripples on the surface of water.
In her “Reflection” series, which he has been producing since 2023, She has focused on two phenomena brought about by water. One is the phenomenon in which the landscape is reflected on the surface of water, and the other is the phenomenon in which the reflected light from the water shines back on walls, etc. Optically, these are explained by the law of light reflection, and both are generally referred to as “water reflections.”
However, the images that appear to our eyes are very different: one is the surrounding scenery reflected in the water surface, and the other is the expression of the water surface reflected in the surrounding scenery. These phenomena, in which the water surface and the surrounding landscape interact with each other, serve as a gateway for Kawamoto to think about the existence of light and the nature of perception.
“MIDUKAGE,” which is indicated in the title of this exhibition, is an archaic word that encompasses the two reflections brought about by the water surface mentioned above. So it implies double “reflection” as a word.
In Japanese, “KAGE( is shadow in English)” has ambiguous connotations; while it represents light itself, it also means the appearance and form of things, or virtual images as images in paintings, photographs, and videos. Kawamoto’s perspective, which looks at the boundary between reality and fiction in the changing world through the light of “water” and paints the world as a “KAGE”, can be said to be based on a worldview that has been cultivated since ancient times in the Japanese cultural sphere.
In addition to works using foam binders, this exhibition will also feature new works that utilize the dynamic texture of cloth to express the fluctuations of light. This will be a venue to present Kawamoto’s new approach to exploring creativity across the two fields of crafts and painting.
Suiei – Road Mirage
Des.23-28
Venue: gallery G
Photo: Kensuke HASHIMOTO
Born and raised in Hiroshima, a region rich in seas and rivers, Kawamoto has long held a deep interest in water. While studying dyeing at Hiroshima City University, she deepened her investigation into materials and developed a distinctive mode of expression that evokes ripples on the water’s surface through experimental techniques using foaming binders.
In her ongoing Reflection series, begun in 2023, Kawamoto focuses on two phenomena: reflections cast onto the surface of water and the shimmering glare produced by reflected light. From April to May of this year, she presented these themes in a solo exhibition titled Mizukage – Double Reflection at it’s CUBE, iti SETOUCHI (Fukuyama, Hiroshima). The present exhibition further develops both the title and the new approaches introduced there.
The word mizukage (written 水影) is an archaic Japanese term that encompasses two kinds of reflection produced by water: mirrored images and reflected glare—what Kawamoto refers to as “double reflection.” In researching this word, she discovered an alternative reading, suiei, which refers to “road mirage”: a phenomenon in which what appears to be a pool of water in the distance recedes further away as one approaches.
In her previous work Mizukage – Double Reflection (2/2), Kawamoto proposed a new approach by expressing the fluctuating glare on the water’s surface through moiré patterns—interference stripes generated by layering the weave structures of fabric. Continuing her investigation into this phenomenon, she noticed that under certain conditions these patterns exhibit a peculiar behavior: they appear when viewed from afar, yet disappear as the viewer draws closer.
This visual effect closely resembles the phenomenon of suiei, which can only be perceived at a distance. There is a modest inevitability in the fact that the moiré patterns Kawamoto explored in pursuit of mizukage (reflections on water) came to manifest in a way that evokes suiei (mirage). Moreover, the behavior of these interference patterns—observable only from afar—has led her inquiry toward a more fundamental reconsideration of how vision itself is constituted.
Centering on works that employ moiré patterns, this exhibition presents a new body of work that examines our spatial perception and relativity of cognition through the illusory presence of suiei. Beginning with the expression of rippling relief formed by foaming binders, Kawamoto’s current practice unfolds across and beyond the boundaries of craft and painting, as well as between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms, offering a view of her inquiry as it continues to expand.