Mari Minato

Shape is reduced to lines, lines are translated to gestures and gestures applied to surfaces as Mari Minato (JP) seeks to capture the essence of the original form – or is it the essence of representation? The Japanese artist, living and working in Paris since 2006, extends historic traces into the present. She might transform Gallic ornamentation into a giant colourful mural, for instance, or capture archaeological artifacts in highly concentrated works on paper. But rather than drawings ‘after nature’ or detailed scientific illustrations, her paintings reveal the life inside the objects, their journey through time, the universe captured in a fragment. During her residency at EKWC, Minato made a painting inspired by a Gallic fibula, on 25 hand-made tiles.