UNION Teesdale Street is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by Kyoko Kanda.
Kyoko Kanda’s paintings are intentionally “unknowable” objects removed from context. In particular her portraits and self-portrait in the form of floating, coiffeured heads turned away from the viewer invite various readings in terms of the other, the unconscious, silence, horror, madness, the unsaid.
In the late 50’s Jacques Lacan presented the idea of ‘objet petit a’ as the unreal ‘part-object’; an entity removed from the body as a whole. Kanda’s doppelganger-like motifs have the attributes of this lack; the remainder of the real - the mere appearance of some secret requiring explanation or interpretation - the unattainable object of desire.
The diaphanous surface of these paintings, their fluidity, economy of paint and visible brushstrokes pay homage to Japanese painterly tradition. In addition the picture plane often reveals a painting beneath a painting - palimpsest layers in the form of light from a doorway or a glowing geometric shape appear beneath the promontory object. Images in the background may actually be painted on top of the foreground, resulting in subtle disorientation in terms of depth of field and focal point.
Kyoko Kanda was born in 1977 in Japan and currently lives and works in London. Kanda graduated in 2007 from MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has recently exhibited in Dusseldorf, Tokyo and London.