Chie Fueki: In the Woods

Shoshana Wayne Gallery is pleased to present its second solo exhibition of new work by Chie Fueki. Born in Yokohama, Japan raised in Sao Paolo and a resident of Brooklyn until 2003, Chie has consistently been surrounded by dense urban environments. These nine new paintings reflect her recent experiences with nature and a realization of the power of accumulation with time. Gradual erosion, deposition along a stream bank and cycles of plant life inform the artist’s emphasis on the tangibility of the painting itself and its surface. This play between destructive and constructive actions becomes a model for painting. In addition Chie regards her artwork as individual vanitas, inspired by the nocturnal and celestial side of the world. Progressing away from pictorial imagery, this new body of work employs the language of ideograms. The artist delicately balances the content of the paintings between symbology and abstraction speaking to the viewer through popular culture, iconography and ornamental arts. The artist explores the speed of how information is decoded through the physicality of the texture, light, color and surface of a painting in conjunction with its visual semiotics. This tension between the perceptible and the sensible relates to the artists continued survey of a universal or inherent human vernacular. Each painting begins with the staining of Japanese Mulberry paper with colored inks, layering them with many washes of pigment and often using interference or iridescent materials. By using rubbing techniques, areas of pattern are rendered in graphite. From this point the paper is cut, collaged and mounted on wooden panel over which the artist continues to apply glitter, colored pencil and dots of acrylic paint. The works architectural element, achieved through its layering and patterning of material, indicates its overall signaling as an object and contributes to the work’s investigation of the experience of communication.