Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz is pleased to present Midori Sato’s solo exhibition “Dress of Flora.”
The new works, inspired by the high-ceilinged space of the Tennoz gallery, focus on the theme of the “Goddess Series,” and are created on large 227 x 162 cm canvases. The structure of the exhibition was also conceived by the artist herself—a new and ambitious endeavor that enables the remarkably sublime world of her work to unfold throughout the entire space.
【About Midori Sato’s works: Bold brush stokes, color combinations, and fundamental motifs delicately depicted with an air of contemporariness】
Sato’s oeuvre is characterized by their emotional and bold brush strokes, as well as their combinations of lines and surfaces in vivid colors such as purple, yellow, pink, orange and blue. Painting on the canvas without a preliminary sketch, the artist deliberately leaves traces of the accidental bleeding of the paint and white untouched areas so as to convey the vast and far-reaching expanse of space. Full of the multilayered, free-spirited charm that only painting can offer, her works indeed serve to deeply stimulate our senses.
Although closets are Sato’s signature motif, she also explores simple, fundamental motifs that have long fascinated many, such as dresses, shoes, carpets, flowers, and fruit. Following her admiration for these things as well as her own sensibilities, she sublimates these motifs into a unique, elegant, and contemporary world of work while moving back and forth between reality and imagination.
Another characteristic of her work is that while she repeatedly paints the same motifs, she changes the expression based on her experiences and the emotions she feels at the time. She on occasion entwines her closets and dresses with flowers or presents scenes as if drifting across the sky. At times the lines are rendered in a more abstract manner, while in other instances it is possible to observe the presence of concrete motifs. An artist highly acclaimed by numerous collectors, art professionals, businesses and many other fields, the fresh world of Sato’s oeuvre brings a sense of anticipation as to how it may further change develop next.
Sato’s recent major solo exhibitions include “Diaphanous petals” (Pola Museum of Art, Atrium Gallery, 2019) and “FLOW” (Gana Art Bogwang, Seoul, Korea, 2023), as well as her participation in the 2023 exhibition “Interior Visions: From Bonnard to Tillmans and Contemporary Artists” (Pola Museum of Art, Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan) together with her partner Yuichiro Moriyama. Other activities include collaborating with the cosmetics brand RMK on a makeup kit, as well as providing illustrations for Fuminori Nakamura’s novel Last Winter, We Parted (Gentosha Inc.).
（Please see here for further information on the artist: http://tomiokoyamagallery.com/en/artists/midori-sato/）
【About the new works: Soft fabrics and shimmering light, figurative and abstract approaches that bring to life the goddess of flowers and fertility】
Sato herself states as follows regarding the exhibition.
“The theme for this exhibition is the “Goddess Series,” in which torsos wearing dresses are likened to goddesses. The Goddess series began six years ago when I came across a torso wearing a dress made of sheer fabric displayed in a window on a street corner, the sight of which seemed to overlap with Greek sculpture. Combined with the reflection of the sunset on the glass, the torso appeared as if it was shining divinely like a goddess, and that was indeed what inspired me to paint it.
On this occasion, I produced large-scale paintings of dresses that I envision being worn by Flora, the goddess of fertility in Greek mythology, the shapes and designs of which are based on various dresses I have seen before. Flowers have always been a motif that has continued to fascinate me in recent years, which is the reason why I painted Flora as a goddess adorned with flowers. The exhibition as a whole gives the impression of a temple, with a goddess figure presented on each wall of the gallery.”
Three gigantic goddess figures in dresses, painted across the entire length of a 226 x 162cm canvas, are installed on each wall of the gallery. Viewers will find themselves surrounded and confronted by them, enveloped in a grand and majestic atmosphere.
For this “Goddess Series,” the artist has enlarged the vertical composition of the paintings to a monumental scale, allowing her to paint both up and down in one go with fewer, larger strokes than ever before, instilling the work a greater sense of dynamism and physicality. The flowing drapes of the dress and the gradation of colors in the vertical lines of the background resonate beautifully, creating the illusion of a quiet glimmer of light and unwavering energy emanating from the picture plane.
The aura that exudes from the paintings is in itself appears to be evocative of the sublime presence of a contemporary goddess.
Furthermore, while the sculptural voluptuousness of the torsos and the flowers on the dresses are reminiscent of Flora, the lack of any facial expression or movement allows each viewer’s imagination to expand far beyond, enabling a unique goddess image to emerge throughout the work and the entire exhibition.
With a faithful and dignified gaze, Midori Sato brings the graceful Flora back to life in our contemporary age. How do the ancient concepts of flowers, prosperity, and goddesses appear to us today through Sato’s work? We welcome viewers to take this opportunity to bear witness to the artist’s new challenge.
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For press inquiries, please contact: press@tomiokoyamagallery.com (Makiko Okado)
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