The fragrance that flowers emanate

The title of this exhibition proposes a tour of the different fragrances emanating from the flowers of the Japanese artist Mari Ito, understanding it as a journey into the interior, not only of the artist but of the Japanese people of today. Bearing in mind the importance that Japanese society affords to the collective or community, when it comes to showing emotions, in many cases, Art is an essential tool for transmitting certain thoughts or feelings. Thus, the artist Mari Ito makes use of such an instrument to offer us the aroma of her contemporaneity.

Mari Ito was born in 1980 in the city of Tokyo. In 2003, she began her studies at Joshibi Daigaku (Joshibi University of Fine Arts and Design) in the Japanese capital, focusing on nihonga (traditional Japanese painting) as her specialist subject. The fact that she chose this branch of art during her training allowed her to imbue herself with the Japanese styles and techniques that are present in her work today; from the set-up of the medium itself, consisting of a wooden frame with kadoidewashi and oguniwashi (types of Japanese paper), the preparation of pigments (usually milled in Japan from precious stones, minerals or shells), and the use of Chinese ink or Japanese application instruments such as the fude pen (a Japanese “brush pen”). This way she produces paintings that take us back to the famous folding screens of the Kanō School (15th-19th century), the Rinpa School (17th-19th century), or to the refined compositions of the artist Jakuchū Itō (1716 – 1800), but from a more contemporary viewpoint. Likewise, one can also perceive references of classic Japanese patterns – used in the designs of kimono and other numerous items – or of Ikebana the Japanese art of flower arrangement, in the harmony of her works. Nevertheless, also clearly visible in her paintings is the influence of present-day Japanese artists, such as Yayoi Kusama and her obsessive art, or Takashi Murakami and the Superflat movement, as well as of Western artists, with examples of Bosch, who made a profound impression on this artist, or of European avant-garde painters.

In 2006, she arrived in Barcelona to continue her studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts. Although the artist had already had individual and group exhibitions in her country of origin, it was here that she finally broke ground in art circles: first in the city of Barcelona, later on in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, and eventually in Paris, Switzerland, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Miami, New York or Canada. It should be noted that since 2011, she has exhibited at the Japanese Zeit Foto Salon gallery, one of the most prestigious in the international art scene and which, over the years, has represented important artists such as Eikō Hosoe, Daidō Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki or Miyako Ishiuchi, among others.

In her early days, Mari Ito was attracted by Freud’s theory of the human psychic functioning and the three entities that co-exist in our psyche – the Id, Ego and Super-ego. The Id would be the most pure and primitive, the most concealed and inaccessible part of our personality that contains everything that is inherited. The artist reflects on the origin of desires (the Id) before they can be analysed with reason – the Ego – or placated by the Super-ego, which responds to society’s ethical and moral norms. Therefore, Mari Ito portrays the birth of flowers (real or invented) to express those innate urges that exist and manifest themselves in each one of us. She draws on these ‘flowers’ to express certain desires and emotions that, in some environments, such as in Japan, tend to be repressed from public view. Through her works, she seeks to alleviate that communicative need, which in direct mode – i.e. through the spoken word – is quite complex in Japanese society. This gives rise to a garden strewn with flower bulbs – some of them with faces of newborns, those who only possess the Id – and from whom a consequence springs: a flower seeking the path to awareness.

Among the different desires she depicts one can find moods, feelings and specific situations of the human being of a positive or benevolent nature, but also others that arise from a negative or perverse source, from which the outcome is bloody. These latter figures refer mainly to critical episodes related to the artist’s own personal experiences or to Japanese history. Some of these works belong to the series known as Post-Fukushima: the triple disaster that occurred in March 2011 in the Tōhoku region and which had such an enormous impact. The Japanese people relived the fear of August 1945, when two atomic bombs contaminated the country with radioactivity, causing disaster and painful consequences. With these works, the artist tries to make us see her stance on the use of nuclear energy, although in a very subtle way, because, as already mentioned above, giving an opinion in public about some “taboo” topics or showing your feelings too overtly can be ill-advised. And so, each of the desires in this garden of contemporary Japan will remain open to different interpretations.

From what tree’s blossoms

I know not:

but such fragrance!

Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694)

Alejandra Rodríguez Cunchillos, Exhibition Curator.