We are very pleased to work with the wonderful artist Yukako Sakakura in presenting this online exhibition of recent small paintings. All paintings are available to view by arrangement – until 1st February 2020.
Yukako Sakakura graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2008, and currently lives and works in Japan. Sakakura’s work has been featured in Vogue.com and shown on BBC ‘In Pictures’. Her first solo show at 108 was reviewed in the Financial Times “Critics Choice” by chief critic Jackie Wullschlager. In 2017, Yukako was invited to exhibit at the Paul Smith Mayfair Store and Gallery – No. 9 Albemarle Street.
‘Watching you, but not you’
“While we enjoy the benefits of social networks, many of us have now entered a state of identity-crisis, in which we are constantly drawing comparisons between ourselves and others. My current ongoing series ‘Watching you, but not you’ relates to this pervasive surveillance society, exploring the way we process the vague feelings of uneasiness that stem from information overload in this new age.
By creating a number of ‘flower portraits’ in imaginary landscapes, I try to a sense of nostalgic Utopia. The connection between each painted flower – which appear in an almost personified form – is intended to act as a sort of metaphor for the connection between our sense of self, and the often abstract notion of ‘others’. From buds to dead flowers, squashed or in full bloom, I depict them in the same way that I might depict people. However, instead of doing direct representations of people with pained expressions and the sort of twisted bodies that are shown in classic paintings of the Romantic era, I paint flowers. In a superficial and sarcastic manner, this ‘beautifying’ process is intended to illustrate the way in which we often conceal the pressures of our daily lives beneath a pretty facade.”
