The Everson Museum of Art presents Yui Kugimiya: Live Paintings open through January 30, 2011.
Brooklyn-based artist Yui Kugimiya presents “live paintings” for the final installment of the 2010 Edge of Art: New York State Artist Series. Kugimiya creates stop-motion animation using expressionistic paintings and actual objects typically found in the home as shown here in her most recent work, Breakfast. This video animation involves the use of paintings in conjunction with a variety of kitchen utensils and vegetables mixed with sound recorded directly from the live action. The artist states, “The animation parallels the psychological space, reveals the thoughts of making, and unfolds the inspiration of the daily-life-mundane.”
The video animations are light-hearted and playful with a hint of dark drama. For each frame, a scene is painted on the canvas with fluid, gestural brush strokes loaded with rich color, captured on video and then the scene disappears before one’s eyes as the next phase of the narrative unfolds. The exhibition includes new video work as well as a selection of paintings in the creative process so viewers can experience the richness of Kugimiya’s paintings alongside her enlivening video works.
Yui Kugimiya was born in Tokyo in 1981 and later moved to the United States where she earned an MFA in painting from Yale University School of Art. Since 2004, she has participated in numerous international exhibitions and is represented in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. This past summer, Kugimiya was an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine, where she developed works included in this exhibition.
The Edge of Art: New York State Artists Series is funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Image: Yui Kugimiya, Japanese, b. 1980, Breakfast, 2010 Video still Courtesy of the artist