EX­hi­Bi­tion

SHINJI OGAWA: MARIA’S LADDER

Shinji Ogawa pursues a singular creative practice by turning prompts he gives himself into meticulously rendered oil paintings and pencil drawings. The prompts are not blueprints that prescribe a finished work. Rather, they are provisional ladders that span the distance between familiar images and worlds yet unknown. This exhibition presents 14 new works based on three of Ogawa’s defining prompts: “symmetry/asymmetry,” “perfect world,” and “without you.” The artist ascends these notional ladders through the time-intensive acts of drawing and painting; the viewer, too, begins to climb by interpreting the works. When their respective journeys converge, a labyrinth of conceptual art unfolds before them.

MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY

Maho Kubota Gallery opened in 2016 on a narrow street in Jingumae, an area of cultural crossover where the trendy Harajuku and upscale Aoyama neighborhoods overlap. Since its founding the gallery has been guided by the conviction that the processes through which humans perceive and understand the world can be explored through visual art, and it has consistently presented artists whose practices exemplify this. The gallery is also committed to bringing greater attention to cultural values and artistic perspectives rooted in East Asian tradition that have yet to be fully recognized in international discourse. It seeks to foster a platform for broader critical dialogue by reconsidering the contemporary significance of these values and perspectives.