Rieko Hotta: Mixing Gestures

Mixing Gestures is Rieko Hotta’s second solo show at Marie Kirkegaard Gallery, presenting a selection of new series of works continuing her exploration of the monochrome and minimalistic painting.

Rieko Hotta works in a serial practice of paintings and objects that evoke tactile images based on the concept of embodied abstraction with physicality, committed to process an abstract thinking into physical imagery using limited materials and colors.

The exhibition will present an installation Mixing Gestures composed by paintings, objects and some raw material on the wall. In accordance with Hotta’s artistic characteristics this installation is quiet and minimal in its use of limited colors, random factors in the production process and organic material elements in the means of expressing a sensory tactility in her works.

In addition, Hotta will be presenting a mix of different paintings from her new series, What Happened In That Dream?, Nowhere, Hours and the new series of objects Shared Skin.

Hotta’s paintings are never figurative, though their abstraction derive from palpable shapes, dreams or thoughts, executed in a meticulous and precise style. Using a small brush repetitively over the canvas, The Hours Series is sprinkled in small white dots of oil over the canvas reflecting the artist’s vision of each hours of the day.

Drawing on an overnight dream, Hotta continues her exploration of the old traditional techique, tempera in the new series What Happened In That Dream?. The technique enables various expressions depending on its use, however, due to its quite delicate nature, it is not suitable for thick layering, which Hotta finds a challenge in. It is its unique and beautiful tones, that keeps her interest in this technique.

With meticulous and precise strokes using a palette knife, Hotta scrapes the structural lines and geometrical patterns in the picture plane, leaving the paintings to a silent – almost meditative
aesthetics. By connecting and mixing the gestures of her different series in her new exhibition, Hotta creates a unique exhibition space that will evoke tactile sensations and memories.

Rieko Hotta is born 1977 in Tokyo. Since 2012 she has been living and working in Berlin. In 2001 she graduated from Nihon University College of Art, Department of Fine Arts in Tokyo.