Natsumi Goldfish
Window Mereology
September 27, 2018 ~ October 17, 2018
Opening Reception: September 27 (Thur.) 6~9PM
Gallery Hours: By Appointment Only
Yashar Gallery proudly presents a solo exhibition by a contemporary Japanese visual artist Natsumi Goldfish entitled “Window Mereology”, with an opening on September 27, 2018. Mereology
(from the Greek μερος, ‘part’) is the theory of parthood relations: of
the relations of part to whole and the relations of part to part within a
whole.1 This exhibition focuses on one of Natsumi
Goldfish's ongoing series, Window paintings made between Tokyo and New
York City in 2017 to 2018. The exhibition will open on September 27,
2018, and it is on view by appointment through October 17, 2018.
A window is an opening and a surface that shows the most private and personal space in our mind and in real everyday life. A window exists as a connection one to another, inside to outside, you and me. A window is a place you see, a window is also a place where you are seen. A window is a connection and thus the most sensitive and fragile aspect of a space. Do those “sides” really exist, or do they exist only in our minds? A window connects and separates space at the same time, it only depends on how we understand the space, from small
personal events that occur to individuals' mundane world, to the major
current social or political issues, that they are all happening in the space.
Even if we are not aware about everything happening, we are affected by
them and we are affecting them to be happening. A small minimal unseen
personal act influences the collective whole as society. We all know one
way that a window changes a space, as a passage for the sunlight, it enables interior plants to grow.
Natsumi Goldfish's window paintings are about nonverbal communications between two sides. As most of her works are conscious of their surroundings and audiences, the window series also carries the facet. A
window is like a surface of a pond in nature that captures aquatic
animals and terrestrial animals. A view from a window is common property
for everyone there. It captures, displays and mirrors the habits, behaviors and curiosity of human beings. A window brings us security and insecurity against potential harm from external forces. It gives us partial and mostly visual information of the things of outside. At the same time, a piece of thin glass is too fragile to protect us from exterior dangers. However, windows
are still present, from official residences, presidential palaces, to
urban and rural houses of citizens around the world. A window is evidence and confirmation of our inborn nature to be connected to the rest of the world. Architecture can be seen as a material incarnation of values, economy, ideologies and what we are as societies and individuals. Natsumi Goldfish's window paintings, are a metaphor of architecture as mind, art, our deep thoughts, communication and structuring ideas. A window is a source of awareness. From both sides, a view from a window is the closest experience of another world, one that
also displays reflection of ourselves in it. Sometimes the reflection
of oneself is very subtle, sometimes it is bold like a fine mirror. In
reality we are part of what we see, the world, and each of us affects
the world we see today to look like what it looks like. What we can see “outside” is also about each of us and part of us, at some level, but we are only barely aware of the world we are born, raised and grew up, and someday will lay dying in.
Natsumi Goldfish writes “One day I realized that I must paint windows, when I realized that my attachment to the window
was my attachment to the world, to the society, to the people. It was
difficult to prove but I was surely an extension of them as they are of
me. It was when I was cat sitting at a friend's place on a ground floor
of a historical apartment in center city, Philadelphia, I was half
naked, a very sunny summer day. I felt something, and I looked outside
the large open window. There was a stranger, a man curiously looking
inside. Cat in my arms and I stared at him still and quietly, but he did
not know. He did not find my nor my cat's gaze. He could perhaps feel
us but saw nothing sharp from outside, unlike the same window at night
when it shows everything much clear with the lighting. I was witnessing
his pure curiosity for a few seconds. It was the human curiosity I saw
through his eyes. It was an intimidating experience for me that I almost
felt like the stranger had access to witness my inner cells growing. In
Tokyo windows were much unfortified, and often kept opened or unlocked.
I used to forget to bring the door key
with me, but I always knew one of the windows was open. It used to be
at least. Even if there were not much going on to see, I could always
hear my neighbors, children running, vacuuming, a murmur, or faint music
from open windows. I could always feel signs of life, daily life noises
and smells. One thing it is universal, cats are always looking out the
windows.”
Natsumi Goldfish is a contemporary Japanese artist based in New York City. Natsumi Goldfish
grew up in the fringe of Tokyo, a place of between of all, where nature
and urban culture, and many different elements coexisted. The
environment inspired and educated her to believe in pluralism, or
something close to the idea of being between and both, which is an
important element in her creation. In 2011 she moved to the United
States. In 2013, she received her B. A. in Art from Tyler School of Art.
Natsumi Goldfish
primary works with oil painting. Her creation is based on her interest
in conscious and unconscious human behaviors seen in the history as well
as in her ordinary life.
www.natsumigoldfish.com
info@natsumigoldfish.com
@natsumigoldfish
