Art Collaboration Kyoto 2024—Kyoto International Conference Center
It’s been some time since I have attended an art fair and, to be honest given its current influx of visitors, Kyoto wasn’t high on my agenda but, as it was close to my abode, its proximity was a challenge to a dinosaur like myself to get out of the studio and look around for once. To my surprise the Kyoto Art Collaboration was very easy to access from Kobe. Further it was not located in the main stream tourist venues of that ancient city, an added plus being it was enticingly picturesque with the late autumn leaves.
A good viewing concept
On show were 69 galleries from around the globe making it a truly international exhibition. The open feeling of the exhibiting space was visually pleasurable as its white cube was breathing and allowing a throughfare through the gallery’s areas; this served to release the congestion visually and physically for relaxed and comfortable inquiry into the artworks on exhibit.
武艺凡 Wu Yifan - Sprinkle Hydrochloric acid on the snow 2022
Oil on canvas - 60 cm x 80 cm
One artist that caught my attention was Wu Yifan who is a young Chinese painter endowed with a sensitive and growing sensibility within western her studio praxis of oil painting. More specifically, in his painting titled Sprinkle Hydrochloric acid on the snow 2022, I noticed it contains brush marks laden with the fresh hues of the new greens of spring contrasting starkly with the sullen sombre grey’s tones of the environs. This dissonance creates a tension between hope and some kind of anxiousness which infuses the figure as she gazes back towards the viewer in a manner not dissimilar to that of the painting by Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Battista, Portrait of a Woman.
However, unlike Battatisa’s use of the female gaze Wu Yifan presents a darkly draped, beautiful young woman with a disquieting but expressionless gaze that opens up as her right hand appears to pull back the cloth of the hood, thus allowing her face and eye to focus on the viewer. Her stark juxtaposition of the recent new greens of foliage and blossom and the remnants of a cold, snowy winter in east Asia serve to create a warm backdrop in an otherwise cold room
Yet there seems to be a missing link in Wu Yifan’s painting. Maybe the woman wants love or the hope of it as the ear plug hangs limply down leaving the viewer to question whether she is taking it out or putting it in her ear to listen to music that may let the coming warmth spring into her heart? Whatever her future is, this painting represents a wonderfully poignant moment in image-making between the moments of a hope of love or its temporary loss.
After viewing Wu Yifan’s painting I moved on to view the many other works on show. There were many good artists and it was enjoyable to talk to the gallerists who had the same passion and drive as the artists. From my conversations, it was clear that these people were highly informed bilingually of the internationalities within the artists' praxis they represent, so a big cheer for them for a job well done.
I look forward to seeing next year’s art fair.
Peter Davidson
