Life used to be much simpler, as we set ourselves precise goals which we hope to achieve. May it be to win an award, to start a family, or to happily reach death; it allowed us to explore the different creative methods that we can uptake as we already knew the “answer to the question of our purpose in life.” However, as one gets older, especially in our current digitized world, we have seemed to lost such instinct. We started to create bigger, but perhaps, quite meaningless things. This resulted in us with “things we don’t need, with no clear goal in sight, at a vertiginous speed…”
Entangled with an orderly sense of intricacy, the woven wool yarn pieces by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota has widely captured audiences from around the world, evidently proven by her exhibitions at different galleries including Venice Biennale and K21 Kunstasammlung NRW, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, New Museum of Jakarta, and now at Galerie Templon until the 22nd of July, 2017.
Presenting a series of site-specific installation and new sculptures, she continues to use the theme of boats in her latest works. “Ships carry people and time. They feature a defined direction, with no other choice but to keep moving forward. Though we may not know where we are heading. we can never stop. Life is a journey of uncertainty and wonder, and the boat symbolizes the bearers of our dreams and hopes.” explained Shiota.
As a perfect match to the medium which she uses, the 5-metre boat that she has created appears solid yet transparent; flowing like the ocean and literally “floating” within the sea of red yarn. This network of connection is continued into her paintings, which she has entitled the Skins. This diptych collection again reminds us of “the difficulty we have understanding the world, and the complex relations that link us.”
