Story and photo by: Tori Lemon
Japanese artist Chiyoko Myose made her second debut at the E. B. White art gallery from Friday, Nov. 4 through Friday, Dec. 2.
The first time she showcased her work was in 2011 as a part of group show curated by Kevin Mullins.
For her current exhibit, Myose contacted Gallery Director John Oehm and sent him pictures of her work in hopes of getting a solo exhibition.
“She contacted us, John actually, about a show last year, and we thought the work was excellent and happened to have an open slot,” Gallery Director Trisha Coates said.
Myose grew up in Japan and was surrounded by art. However, her interest in creating artwork did not begin until she moved to the United States.
“Although my mother was a painter and good at art, I did not have a passion for art when I was in Japan,” Myose said. “I was interested in art, but I was thinking art was only for a small number of extremely talented people. When I moved to the United States, I felt a strong urge to express my feelings. I took art because I enjoy looking at art and I thought I could express myself even if I had a language barrier.”
Her three installations in the gallery are created mostly by dryer sheets, a mundane, common household item.
“Each sheet represents an individual person,” She said. “The dryer sheets have delicate texture with tiny holes like people’s skin – the surface of our bodies. The dryer sheets touch the clothes in the dryer machines. Clothes can be the surface of the bodies, human skins, to a certain extent.”
Without directly receiving each person’s life story and keeping things abstract, Myose manages to express through her work that we are all what she calls “sojourners in one way or another.”
She describes a sojourner as someone who just passes through anywhere, not being able to choose one place to stay over another.
“As a sojourner, I am consoled by the belief that we are all sojourners on the earth,” she said according to the artist statement posted in the gallery. “My work expresses my various perspectives in the search for meaning within the sojourner’s journey. Forming relationships with people is something I cannot take for granted.”
By sewing the dryer sheets together, Myose helps to visualize the relationships between individuals that occur beneath the surface.
The paintings in the show are from her ongoing bodies of work Sojourning and Iridescence and a new series called Shadowlands.
“Although each series carries a different narrative, they all express my search for the place to fully call home,” she said.
Myose has three installation pieces in the exhibit, Tumbled, Dried and Softened, Bloom and In The Depth.
Tumbled, Dried, and Softened took Myose two months to create. Bloom took about six months give or take a few weeks and In the Depth took about 10 days.
Her creation process varied between her different pieces.
Tumbled, Dried and Softened was composed and collected of used dryer sheets by people from a local laundromat. She then ironed, cut and sewed them together with thread.
For In the Depth she made net-like pieces by knotting the threads and wrapping each brick with them. She then took a video of her hands with sewing motions for the video projection and edited it.
“A couple of days before the opening of the show, the installation process took place,” she said. “Butler’s art teachers and students helped me with installing the pieces, climbing up and down ladders and carrying and placing the rocks and bricks.”
Even after her artwork is taken down, Myose hopes that her work will relate to the people who are in a similar situation for years to come.
