Gene Gallery is delighted to announce the solo exhibition “A Long Gaze and Thousand Glances” by Akiko Ueda, from 26 May 2024 to 24 June 2024.
One of the intriguing pleasures the concept of time carries, is that it is experienced by all beings while manifests itself in different ways in different beings; that it is invisible, yet visible to those who experience it; that it touches everything, yet it itself can’t be touched.
Time has aroused Akiko Ueda an infinite interest in it, and it has become the source of fascination and constitutes an essence of her paintings. Ueda's paintings begin as intuitive explorations that unfold in the shifting coordinates of time. Accompanied by improvised, instinctive gestures as well as nuanced and careful brushstrokes, the canvas on which these images emerge becomes a space for multiplicity of narratives where a diversity of elements meet, variety of events occur and unfold. The recurring motifs in the works - from plants and flowers, fragments of distant landscapes, solitary figures and animals, to man-made spaces such as parks or staircases - encompass both long gazes and fleeting glimpses, both thoughtful and whimsical, and bring both metaphorical and evocative meaning. Akiko Ueda's work is a sustained, multi-layered observation and contemplation of the world between the real and the virtual, the imagined and the experienced, suggesting how one space transitions, fades, or shifts to another, becoming a pathway to approaching, experiencing, and visualised time. In the images, time finally connects and touches all, even though it still cannot reside and eventually escapes as always.
One of the intriguing pleasures the concept of time carries, is that it is experienced by all beings while manifests itself in different ways in different beings; that it is invisible, yet visible to those who experience it; that it touches everything, yet it itself can’t be touched.
Time has aroused Akiko Ueda an infinite interest in it, and it has become the source of fascination and constitutes an essence of her paintings. Ueda's paintings begin as intuitive explorations that unfold in the shifting coordinates of time. Accompanied by improvised, instinctive gestures as well as nuanced and careful brushstrokes, the canvas on which these images emerge becomes a space for multiplicity of narratives where a diversity of elements meet, variety of events occur and unfold. The recurring motifs in the works - from plants and flowers, fragments of distant landscapes, solitary figures and animals, to man-made spaces such as parks or staircases - encompass both long gazes and fleeting glimpses, both thoughtful and whimsical, and bring both metaphorical and evocative meaning. Akiko Ueda's work is a sustained, multi-layered observation and contemplation of the world between the real and the virtual, the imagined and the experienced, suggesting how one space transitions, fades, or shifts to another, becoming a pathway to approaching, experiencing, and visualised time. In the images, time finally connects and touches all, even though it still cannot reside and eventually escapes as always.
