Miwa Ogasawara’s third solo exhibition in Tokyo reveals a more foreboding turn to the artist’s signature style of moody, intense shadows and recurring motifs of windows, mirrors, and curtains. Ogasawara’s paintings are like a fog that shrouds the viewer: one is unsure if to regard her blurred out figures with quiet dread or resigned sadness. Who is the girl between the curtains, and why is her face concealed from us? Who usually sits on the empty chair by the window, and what lies beyond the blinding light that permeates through the blinds? These questions are summoned by the distant spaces depicted in Ogasawara’s art. Her work may be read as visual representations of the inner world of the mind as it is obscured from empirical experience and existence.

The Great Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011 as well as the developments in Japanese society in response to the nuclear power plant crisis that came in its aftermath have imbued Ogasawara’s “inner narrative” with a more ominous feel. The nebulous figures in her paintings bring to mind the ceaseless motion of troubled souls, and recall the death poem of Basho, one of the greatest haiku poets of all time: “On a journey, ill;/ my dream goes wandering/over withered fields.” Darkness in the work of Miwa Ogasawara is not a metaphor; it is a mirror that mercilessly reflects and disturbs the churning thoughts and emotions within each viewer. 

Beyond Silence will show at Scai the Bathhouse Gallery until 18 May. 

Scai the Bathhouse, Kashiwayu-Ato, 6-1-23 Yanaka, Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0001, Japan

All images courtesy of the gallery.