Gallery Update: Masako Kamiya: Liminal

February 28, 2014

Masako Kamiya: Liminal
On View: Feb. 14 – March 15, 2014
Montserrat’s Carol Schlosberg Gallery
Reception: Tue., Feb. 25
Artist Talk: Thu., March 6
montserrat.edu/galleries/schlosberg

Masako Kamiya paints dots; precise, intentional and deliberate dots. To say this means not to naively reduce Kamiya’s work to the singular simplicity of the dot. On the contrary, her repetitive and delicate mark making activates a complex dialogue between Kamiya and the surface of her work. The dot is her poetic language. With each application, Kamiya translates emotion and dimension to the viewer. “Mark making is important,” says Kamiya, “dots not only make individual marks, but also make a shape that is clear and simple.”

The six works featured in “Liminal” are monuments to the mark. “Late April”, 2012 for example, is a microcosm of mini skyscrapers. Unlike city towers made of concrete and marble, Kamiya constructs a constellation of fragile specks. As each mark is made, layering color on top of color, slowly grows outward from the surface of the work, casting shadows across a gradation of blue to purple.

The buildup of gouache influences a spacial relationship between medium and surface; one of the many ways Kamiya widens the scope of painting. The fast drying nature and durability of gouache is an ideal fit for this repetitious, compulsory type of making. Kamiya’s impulse to paint communicates a particular way to read the ‘brushstroke’. Each encounter is a momentary touch, a carefully choreographed exchange between artist and intention.

Kamiya’s paintings create a tangible presence despite the elusiveness associated with liminality. With each mark, she paints a sensory threshold of an intermediate state between transit and stasis. The exhibition’s title, Liminal, relates to the intermediate state that Kamiya brings to fruition compositionally. In the physical sense, “liminal” is an abstract term used most often in reference to an illusionary space, or the space between things. This exhibition is about the opening up of that space on the picture plane.

Masako Kamiya is a 1997 graduate of Montserrat College of Art, with a BFA in Fine Arts. She received her MFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art in 1999. Kamiya is represented by Gallery NAGA in Boston. In the summer of 2013, Kamiya was the recipient of the Featured Artist Residency Program at Burren College of Art, Ireland. Most recently, Kamiya is featured in the group exhibition, “Obsessive Compulsive Order” currently on view at UMass Dartmouth in New Bedford, Feb 6 – March 13, 2014.

www.masakokamiya.com

Photos by Michelle Behre ’14


www.montserrat.edu