Rikako Kawauchi

Born 1990, lives and works in Tokyo

Meeting, 2019
watercolor and pencil on paper, 24,2 x 33,3 cm

Rikako Kawauchi

Born 1990, lives and works in Tokyo

Rikako Kawauchi © Photo by Sakiko Nomura

Curriculum Vitae

1990 Born in Tokyo, Japan
2015 Tama Art University, Bachelor’s degree, Oil Painting
2017 Tama Art University, Master’s degree, Oil Painting
Current Lives and works in Tokyo

Grants and awards

2022 VOCA Award, Tokyo, Japan
2021 TERRADA ART AWARD 2021, Japan
2015 shiseido art egg AWARD
2014 The 1st CAF Award, Kenjiro Hosaka Award / Monex, Inc. ART IN THE OFFICE

Solo Exhibitions (selected)

2023 “Voice of the Soul”, ERA GALLERY, Milan, Italy
“Line & Colors” (NANJO SELECTION vol.1), N&A Art Site, Tokyo, Japan
“Human Closely”, Lurf MUSEUM, Tokyo, Japan
2022 "Lines", Van der Grinten Galerie, Cologne, Germany
"Make yourself at home", Nihombashi Mitsukoshi Honten, MITSUKOSHI CONTEMPORARY GALLERY, Tokyo
2021 Empty Volumes, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
afterimage aftermyth, Roppongi Hills A/D Gallery, Tokyo
2020 drawings, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
drawings, OIL by Bijutsu Techo, Tokyo
Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi, Mitsukoshi Contemporary Gallery, Tokyo
2018 human wears human / bloom wears bloom, Kamakura Gallery, Kanagawa
Tiger Tiger, burning bright, WAITINGROOM, TokyoWAITINGROOM, Tokyo
2017 Something held and brushed, Tokyo Myoan Gallery, Tokyo
NEWoMan ART wall Vol.7 “Easy Chic Pastels”, NEWoMan ART wall, JR Shinjuku Station, Tokyo
2016 Back is confidential space. Behind=Elevator, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
Rikako Kawauchi Solo Exhibition, ART TAIPEI 2016, Taipei World Trade Center, Taiwan
2015 Collector and Artist vol.1, T-Art Gallery, Tokyo
shiseido art egg 9: Rikako Kawauchi, Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo

Group Exhibitions (selected)

2023 "Good Morning Japan", Nassima Landau Art Foundation, Tel Aviv, Israel
2022 "Make yourself at home", Nihombashi Mitsukoshi Honten, MITSUKOSHI CONTEMPORARY GALLERY, Tokyo
VOCA 2022, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo
2021 TERRADA ART AWARD 2021, Finalist Exhibition, Tokyo
Viewing Room Exhibition, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
2020 Inside the Collector’s Vault, vol.1-, WHAT, Tokyo
10TH, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
Input / Output, GINZA TSUTAYA BOOKS GINZA ATRIUM, Tokyo
Blossoming of individuality Post-Isaku generation, people who left the Bunka Gakuin from Showa to Heisei, Musee Le Vent, Karuizawa, Nagano
2019 Photo, 3F/3kai, Tokyo drawings, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo
2018 Museum of Together - Circus, Shibuya Hikarie 8/COURT, Tokyo
2017 spiral take art collection 2017 "SHU SHU SHU SHO", Spiral Garden, Tokyo
Museum of Together, Spiral Garden, Tokyo
Joint Graduation Exhibition of 5 Art Universities in Tokyo, The National Art Center Tokyo, Tokyo
NEWSPACE, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo
2016 Stereotypical, Gallery PARC, Kyoto
2015 Dead Henge / Aesthetic, HIGURE 17-15 cas, Tokyo
2014 The 1st CAF Award - Winning Award Exhibition, TABLOID GALLERY, Tokyo
That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow, Shinjuku Ophthalmologist (Ganka) Gallery, Tokyo
2013 TOTSU Exhibition, TKP Theater Kashiwa, Art Line Kashiwa 2013, Chiba Home Made Family, CASHI Refregilater, Tokyo
Sleep No More, Tama Art University Art Festival, Tokyo
2012 OTHER PAINTING XI, Pepper’s Gallery, Tokyo
TOTSU Exhibition, Sogo Kashiwa, Art Line Kashiwa 2012, Chiba
Donuts k, Tama Art University Art Festival, Tokyo

A Group Show

TRANSFORMATION: MATERIAL & DISSOLUTION

Wolfgang Flad, Fernando de Brito, Joseph Beuys, Rikako Kawauchi, Rebecca Stevenson, Lorenzo Pompa, Elger Esser, Robert Currie

June 17, 2023

 — 

August 5, 2023

As the title of the show suggests, the focus here is on the alchemical aspect of art. This could perhaps be described as a recharging action, by which lifeless, inconspicuous material is reborn as something precious, fascinating, powerful and unique, and this element then remains purposely perceptible in the work. Perhaps to provoke wonder, a moment to stop and take up the scent that brings the viewer into active dialogue with the work and its aura.

The exhibition ‘TRANSFORMATIONS: MATERIAL AND DISSOLUTION’ brings together works of 11 international artists in which the transformation of materials plays a role, often a fundamental one. Here we encounter matter in the form of: dust, wax, paper, nylon, epoxy, glass, mirrored glass, silver, ink, graphite and plaster.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) a major protagonist of the post-war avant-garde, Beuys is undisputedly among the most influential artists, whose understanding of material (also in the alchemical sense) went as far as the use of his own body. Here we present 6 very quiet, gentle frottage drawings that were made in the 50s in connection with his zinc relief „Vor der Geburt“ (Before the Birth).

The three-dimensional works of Japanese painter Rikako Kawauchi (*1990, lives in Tokyo) are made of flesh-colored serpentine structures cast in resin. They evoke organic entities that despite their utter abstraction exude an extreme realism.

Artist Wolfgang Flad (*1974, lives in Berlin) is represented with pieces from various work groups: abstract aluminum reliefs with a stark interplay between the shiny polished surface and the rough, pockmarked texture of the craters that blemish it to various degrees; colorful, reflective wall pieces from his ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ cycle; and the latest works, large-format abstract tableaus with an uneven, sandy surface made of dust and sawdust collected from the floor of the artist’s studio, color-enhanced and transformed.

From a photographic template transferred in painting onto a collection of numerous thin, taught nylon threads, densely spaced yet offsetting each other, artist Robert Currie (*1976, lives in London) creates three-dimensional wall pieces that are visually extremely suggestive while appearing almost immaterial at the same time. His abstract works, on the other hand, evoke shadowy black mirrors.

Elger Esser (*1967, lives in Düsseldorf) here shows two small-format nightscapes, in which the black silhouettes of treetops are seen in the moonlight, outlined against the night sky. The special technique of direct pigment printing on silver-plated copper plates palpably communicates the magical atmosphere, as the eye roams the scene of darkest night, seeking orientation and a sense of space in the few light sources to be found.

The black and white photographs of Pierre Faure (*1965, lives in Paris) have a surprising extreme-yet- subtle alienation effect: with a flipped perspective, a skillfully chosen image edit and reduction of visual information down to purely geometric structures the perception of scaffolding is completely redefined.

Using more or less sharp objects, Fernando de Brito (*1956, lives in Hamburg), carves through the layers of oil and tempera built up on the MDF “canvas” to create paintings that are a mesh of lines. The principal of oscillation between clearly spaced straight vertical lines and freehand, dynamic horizontal lines seems to make each composition pulsate and allows it to breath.

Dutch artist Bas de Wit (*1977, lives in Maastricht) transforms casts of old art-historical sculptures, out of which he makes new, more rough-hewn castings, which he in turn then casts with colored layers of resin. This process leaves much room for deformation, by accident or design, resulting in newly created sculptures that are but a vague reminiscence of the original historical model, from which they have liberated themselves in stages, to assert their own existence in the end.

Wax, a flexible, user-friendly material, has been deployed widely throughout art history in the area of applied arts and for maquettes of planned sculptures. Rebecca Stevenson (*1971, lives in London), in contrast to the hyperrealism of the 60s or 90s, uses wax to sculpturally paraphrase the depiction of reality found in her poetic-macabre allegories.

The always intensely colorful figurative scenarios in the paintings of Lorenzo Pompa (*1962, lives in Düsseldorf) are joined at regular intervals, as if in an ongoing dialogue, by black-silver abstract works in which the oil paint is constrained in minimalistic gesture that depending on the size can become an almost unlimited textural field. This show presents the latest of these paintings.

Michael Wittassek (*1958, lives near Cologne), for his part, works mainly in the form of installation with sculptures of folded, crumpled sheets of exposed photographic paper. Here, however, we are showing mid-sized black, mirrored objects with a reflective convex surface that seems to suck in the surrounding space and even the viewers themselves.

We would like to thank the participating artists for their generous constructive input.

A Group Show

TRANSFORMATION: MATERIAL & DISSOLUTION

Wolfgang Flad, Fernando de Brito, Joseph Beuys, Rikako Kawauchi, Rebecca Stevenson, Lorenzo Pompa, Elger Esser, Robert Currie

June 17, 2023

 — 

August 5, 2023

As the title of the show suggests, the focus here is on the alchemical aspect of art. This could perhaps be described as a recharging action, by which lifeless, inconspicuous material is reborn as something precious, fascinating, powerful and unique, and this element then remains purposely perceptible in the work. Perhaps to provoke wonder, a moment to stop and take up the scent that brings the viewer into active dialogue with the work and its aura.

The exhibition ‘TRANSFORMATIONS: MATERIAL AND DISSOLUTION’ brings together works of 11 international artists in which the transformation of materials plays a role, often a fundamental one. Here we encounter matter in the form of: dust, wax, paper, nylon, epoxy, glass, mirrored glass, silver, ink, graphite and plaster.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) a major protagonist of the post-war avant-garde, Beuys is undisputedly among the most influential artists, whose understanding of material (also in the alchemical sense) went as far as the use of his own body. Here we present 6 very quiet, gentle frottage drawings that were made in the 50s in connection with his zinc relief „Vor der Geburt“ (Before the Birth).

The three-dimensional works of Japanese painter Rikako Kawauchi (*1990, lives in Tokyo) are made of flesh-colored serpentine structures cast in resin. They evoke organic entities that despite their utter abstraction exude an extreme realism.

Artist Wolfgang Flad (*1974, lives in Berlin) is represented with pieces from various work groups: abstract aluminum reliefs with a stark interplay between the shiny polished surface and the rough, pockmarked texture of the craters that blemish it to various degrees; colorful, reflective wall pieces from his ‘Dark Side of the Moon‘ cycle; and the latest works, large-format abstract tableaus with an uneven, sandy surface made of dust and sawdust collected from the floor of the artist’s studio, color-enhanced and transformed.

From a photographic template transferred in painting onto a collection of numerous thin, taught nylon threads, densely spaced yet offsetting each other, artist Robert Currie (*1976, lives in London) creates three-dimensional wall pieces that are visually extremely suggestive while appearing almost immaterial at the same time. His abstract works, on the other hand, evoke shadowy black mirrors.

Elger Esser (*1967, lives in Düsseldorf) here shows two small-format nightscapes, in which the black silhouettes of treetops are seen in the moonlight, outlined against the night sky. The special technique of direct pigment printing on silver-plated copper plates palpably communicates the magical atmosphere, as the eye roams the scene of darkest night, seeking orientation and a sense of space in the few light sources to be found.

The black and white photographs of Pierre Faure (*1965, lives in Paris) have a surprising extreme-yet- subtle alienation effect: with a flipped perspective, a skillfully chosen image edit and reduction of visual information down to purely geometric structures the perception of scaffolding is completely redefined.

Using more or less sharp objects, Fernando de Brito (*1956, lives in Hamburg), carves through the layers of oil and tempera built up on the MDF “canvas” to create paintings that are a mesh of lines. The principal of oscillation between clearly spaced straight vertical lines and freehand, dynamic horizontal lines seems to make each composition pulsate and allows it to breath.

Dutch artist Bas de Wit (*1977, lives in Maastricht) transforms casts of old art-historical sculptures, out of which he makes new, more rough-hewn castings, which he in turn then casts with colored layers of resin. This process leaves much room for deformation, by accident or design, resulting in newly created sculptures that are but a vague reminiscence of the original historical model, from which they have liberated themselves in stages, to assert their own existence in the end.

Wax, a flexible, user-friendly material, has been deployed widely throughout art history in the area of applied arts and for maquettes of planned sculptures. Rebecca Stevenson (*1971, lives in London), in contrast to the hyperrealism of the 60s or 90s, uses wax to sculpturally paraphrase the depiction of reality found in her poetic-macabre allegories.

The always intensely colorful figurative scenarios in the paintings of Lorenzo Pompa (*1962, lives in Düsseldorf) are joined at regular intervals, as if in an ongoing dialogue, by black-silver abstract works in which the oil paint is constrained in minimalistic gesture that depending on the size can become an almost unlimited textural field. This show presents the latest of these paintings.

Michael Wittassek (*1958, lives near Cologne), for his part, works mainly in the form of installation with sculptures of folded, crumpled sheets of exposed photographic paper. Here, however, we are showing mid-sized black, mirrored objects with a reflective convex surface that seems to suck in the surrounding space and even the viewers themselves.

We would like to thank the participating artists for their generous constructive input.

Rikako Kawauchi

Lines

February 13, 2022

 — 

April 23, 2022

We are pleased to announce a debut solo exhibition with drawings and sculptural works by Rikako Kawauchi, born in 1990 in Tokyo, and cordially invite you to the opening on Saturday, February 12th from 12 PM – 8PM. This is the artist’s first solo show outside of Japan.

Rikako Kawauchi’s work has extreme, often disturbing intensity and immediacy, almost as if you could feel her pulse rate in the line of her pencil. Drawing, as Kawauchi writes of her own work method, is like the sound box of her own body, which processes the reactions to other bodies and their physicality. The perception of physicality is, in fact, the focal point of the artist’s work, expressed primarily in regards to culinary fare, to food, the ingestion and processing of foodstuffs, and also to sexual interaction, including that of a violent nature, fuelled by obsessive fantasy.

It is all about a state of existence that is indistinguishable from being totally exposed.

In the watercolors, especially, it is apparent that the works have little to do with seismographic illustrations of introspection. Rather, the artist is much more interested in the act of intense concentration at hand, as she allows the full physicality of the subject or object of her focus to take shape on the blank sheet of paper before her. Kawauchi thus uses an almost intuitive stroke as a line, which, when multiplied, can form a clear outline. The steady stroke can be as devoid of modulation as a piece of bent wire or, when rendered with various degrees of hand pressure, can appear to be almost three-dimensionally vivid. In earlier drawings these two modalities stand in contrast to teach other; in the latest works both of them contrast with the watercolor sections, which thus take on a stupendously realistic aspect: like still raw or reopened wounds they demand, almost painfully, that attention be paid.

In this exhibition, conceived by the artist as a single holistic installation, we are showing 50 watercolor-drawings created between 2018 and 2020, including two large works in a floor-to-ceiling format, as well as 4 sculptural pieces from 2021. In their materiality and distressing vulnerability these sculptural works might invite a spontaneous comparison with the anatomical sculptures of Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere. But these consist “only”of the line which, in its pulsating vivacity, suggests something flowing though a vein, and visually could, in fact – but for the hugely outsized dimensions – resemble a freshly dissected blood vessel.

Rikako Kawauchi studied oil painting at the Tama Art University, earning first a bachelor’s then a  master’s degree, with which she graduated in 2017. While still a student, she received the 1st CAF Award in 2014 followed by the coveted Shiseido Art Egg Award in 2015. Recent accolades include the 2021 TERRADA ART AWARD and the VOCA Award 2022. Rikako Kawauchi is represented in Japan by the Tokyo gallery WAITINGROOM.

Rikako Kawauchi

Lines

February 13, 2022

 — 

April 23, 2022

We are pleased to announce a debut solo exhibition with drawings and sculptural works by Rikako Kawauchi, born in 1990 in Tokyo, and cordially invite you to the opening on Saturday, February 12th from 12 PM – 8PM. This is the artist’s first solo show outside of Japan.

Rikako Kawauchi’s work has extreme, often disturbing intensity and immediacy, almost as if you could feel her pulse rate in the line of her pencil. Drawing, as Kawauchi writes of her own work method, is like the sound box of her own body, which processes the reactions to other bodies and their physicality. The perception of physicality is, in fact, the focal point of the artist’s work, expressed primarily in regards to culinary fare, to food, the ingestion and processing of foodstuffs, and also to sexual interaction, including that of a violent nature, fuelled by obsessive fantasy.

It is all about a state of existence that is indistinguishable from being totally exposed.

In the watercolors, especially, it is apparent that the works have little to do with seismographic illustrations of introspection. Rather, the artist is much more interested in the act of intense concentration at hand, as she allows the full physicality of the subject or object of her focus to take shape on the blank sheet of paper before her. Kawauchi thus uses an almost intuitive stroke as a line, which, when multiplied, can form a clear outline. The steady stroke can be as devoid of modulation as a piece of bent wire or, when rendered with various degrees of hand pressure, can appear to be almost three-dimensionally vivid. In earlier drawings these two modalities stand in contrast to teach other; in the latest works both of them contrast with the watercolor sections, which thus take on a stupendously realistic aspect: like still raw or reopened wounds they demand, almost painfully, that attention be paid.

In this exhibition, conceived by the artist as a single holistic installation, we are showing 50 watercolor-drawings created between 2018 and 2020, including two large works in a floor-to-ceiling format, as well as 4 sculptural pieces from 2021. In their materiality and distressing vulnerability these sculptural works might invite a spontaneous comparison with the anatomical sculptures of Belgian artist Berlinde de Bruyckere. But these consist “only”of the line which, in its pulsating vivacity, suggests something flowing though a vein, and visually could, in fact – but for the hugely outsized dimensions – resemble a freshly dissected blood vessel.

Rikako Kawauchi studied oil painting at the Tama Art University, earning first a bachelor’s then a  master’s degree, with which she graduated in 2017. While still a student, she received the 1st CAF Award in 2014 followed by the coveted Shiseido Art Egg Award in 2015. Recent accolades include the 2021 TERRADA ART AWARD and the VOCA Award 2022. Rikako Kawauchi is represented in Japan by the Tokyo gallery WAITINGROOM.