Posted on
2017-03-27
The artist will exhibit a selection of 26 paintings and several drawings on celluloid, all preparatory studies for a 186-page manga, unveiled here in its entirety. A painter, illustrator, sci-fi writer and manga artist, Aya Takano belongs to Kaikai Kiki, the artistic production studio created in 2001 by Takashi Murakami. Inspired by all art forms, from erotic stamps of the Edo Period to impressionism, from Osamu Tezuka to Gustav Klimt, the artist has built a universe all her own. A universe made of infinite worlds, all means of escaping reality, gravity and its restraints, to attain a certain form of transcendence imagined from the youngest age:
“When I was a kid, I daydreamed and stayed in my fantasy land by reading books and mangas all the time. I hated most designs of devices and buildings and I still do. I aspired to freedom of spirit and I was very different from others. I still want to be like that, but I’m not able to…”
Aya Takano’s inner journeys wind their way into delicate works that convey a disturbing impression, somewhere between eroticism and impertinence. In a bedroom or in the metro, in front of the skyscrapers of a megalopolis or on the moon, naïve and androgynous girls are sketched out in thin, sharp lines. They have wide-open eyes encircled with black, long legs and lips like rosebuds. Often nude, draped in kimonos or dressed in the latest Tokyo fashions, these young women talk to each other, kiss each other, touch each other. Their knees or elbows are reddened, attesting to their extreme sensitivity. They float, fly above the clouds and communicate with their peers or with exotic animals, sometimes misshaped, always in partnership.
Opposite – The Adventure inside, 2015
Exhibition runs through to May 13th, 2017
Galerie Perrotin
76 Rue de Turenne
75003 Paris
France
www.perrotin.com
