Arresting Infinity
“It’s difficult to say this in words but the concept is coming from all the events happening in this world,” says Kaoli Mashio. “And I don’t want to explain about my work but it could be that I have packed together this land – this land, this land, this land – using stones from different places and it’s a limited extent you are looking at. The strips along the sides of the pieces are so important, defining where you are looking. Without them, there is too much of infinity. I call this concept Panorama. I try to do this without explaining what it is using these materials and paints.”
The critically acclaimed 49 year old artist was a student of Peter Doig at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where she graduated with a Masters in Fine Art in 2011. Originally from Gunma Prefecture in Japan, she moved to Europe in 2004 to pursue a career as an artist. Kunstakademie’s alumni include Joseph Beuys, Andreas Gursky and Gerhard Richter. Peter – whose painting White Canoe broke the record for a living artist’s work when it sold at auction in 1996 for £7.3 million – describes her work as “delicate and beautiful”. He invited Kaoli to exhibit with him last September at the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery in London.
“I just hung this piece five minutes ago,” she says, standing in front of it. “When you face the work you see yourself – you are part of it. If you see the world you have to see yourself. The mirror in the middle of this piece is a metaphor for what are you? So you are looking at this like it is a small panorama. The landscape metaphor in the pieces on this wall is that you are looking at a limited place with a limited view. I need to continue these.” Kaoli speaks thoughtfully and articulately yet in the end she wishes her art to speak for itself. And it does. It speaks volumes. It tells of simplicity, nonduality, knowledge – and genius.
