YUGEN Gallery will be holding EDO and YUMEKA's solo exhibition "NUDAVERITAS" from Saturday, April 1st to Thursday, April 6th, 2023.

A series inspired by Klimt's works

The title of this exhibition is taken from Gustav Klimt's late 19th century work ``NUDA VERITAS/The Naked Truth.'' The collection of 21 new works was inspired by Friedrich von Schiller's motto written in the same work: ``The uncompromising pursuit of beauty for those few who understand the truth.'' In addition, two bags created in collaboration with bag brand SUSIESVELT will also be on display.

The light of life seen in paintings

YUMEKA was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1977. She grew up in a family where creative work was a daily activity, with her grandmother being a kimono tailor, her mother being good at dressmaking and handicrafts, and her father enjoying painting as a hobby, and she began studying Japanese painting when she was a teenager. After receiving an award at a public exhibition in 1998, he began producing paintings in earnest, and in 2009 held his first solo exhibition at the Okazaki City Art Museum. This is where you will meet EDO.

It is said that the two were at the lowest point in their lives when they met. EDO is stuck at work, and his health is failing, making life difficult. YUMEKA, who had the happy opportunity of having her first solo exhibition, was also suffering from illness at the time, and her mother suggested that her first solo exhibition would be a source of encouragement for her life.

Looking back at those days, EDO was so depressed that she says, ``My eyes were a matte black color,'' but when she casually finished a painting inspired by the work of Kyosai Kawanabe, she found her purpose in life and began ``painting.'' "It saved my life." At that time, I happened to come across YUMEKA's solo exhibition.

This was YUMEKA's first solo exhibition in her life, and it attracted about 2,000 people in less than a week, and many of the visitors said that they were energized by her work, making her realize the power of painting. Knowing that ``the pictures I had been drawing just for myself can bring happiness, hope, and comfort to other people's lives,'' he began to devote himself to painting.

As YUMEKA says, ``I was wandering down the dark path of life, and a light came to me.'' The raw emotions that were brought about by the paintings. Behind that was the death drive that was inseparably stuck. "Eros and Thanatos. The hope that exists between them" drives them to express themselves in painting.

At this time, the two exchanged only a few words, and their contact could not be called a point, and their impression of each other was that they were ``people who had lost their life and were like ghosts.'' However, the two, who were still unsure of their true circumstances, encountered each other many times in the following month at the places they each visited. Our creative activities as a unit begin from a chance encounter that seems inevitable.

"I value the coincidence and necessity of 'I saw this today' in my creations. That's the beginning of everything." (EDO)

It can be said that YUMEKA's style of painting, which reflects chance and unconscious actions, was decided at the time of the two's encounter, as seen in YUMEKA's method of adding color without a sketch.

Painting as a fundamental act

This piece features a pair of glamorous legs wearing high heels peeking out from the skirt of a dress, high heels that look like sharp knives, and lipstick drawn randomly. In these figurative paintings, we can sense that there is inherent human beauty in the danger of transforming fear into beauty.

EDO has always drawn high heels. When she was a child, she remembers seeing her mother being forced to wear high heels by a shoe peddler at home. Also, my father took me to see the dance performed by Ushidai Amagi at Sankai Juku. He says that these fears are engraved in his memory, and that he has had the experience of "transforming them into beauty" over time.

Reminiscent of posters from the 1950s, it shows that the inseparability of fear and beauty, Eros and Thanatos is hidden in everyday life.

On the other hand, in contrast to figurative paintings, abstract paintings, in which the black brushstrokes that appear like ink elephants (avant-garde calligraphy) create a sense of vast depth, require people to ``color,'' ``draw lines,'' and ``write letters.'' You can clearly see the traces of his fundamental actions.

``I love fishing because of my father's influence, and I feel energy from coming into contact with life in the natural world, and from casual changes in everyday life such as the movement of trees and clouds, and colors, and I always repeat the task of using it to the fullest.'' (YUMEKA)

``YUMEKA's energy is so strong that I feel like I'm creating a container to hold that emotion.However, I sometimes wonder if I'm narrowing her worldview with my knowledge and information.'' (EDO)

Klimt left many of his earliest works depicting allegorical women. Although they are a celebration of feminine beauty, they are depicted as eternal, mysterious beings that men cannot approach, and are said to be a manifestation of the beauty that comes from fear.

EDO confesses the struggle of expression when giving narrative and order to YUMEKA's paintings, which capture the beauty of small everyday life with pure sensibility. It may be fear of her partner, YUMEKA, but she senses a hint of beauty there. For EDO, Nuda Veritas can be seen as YUMEKA, and we learn that purity and conflict harbor artistry and vitality.

Towards a beautiful world for everyone

This poem is a love poem that invites the woman he loves to go on a journey, imagining a world of beauty surrounded by sensual and gentle light. It can be read as an invitation to the world of beauty.

We are now living in a state of anxiety as all kinds of values ​​are undergoing a landslide. People with anxiety and fear live their daily lives and create things. It is difficult to separate contradictory values ​​such as right and wrong, virtue and vice, and this is precisely why the beauty resides. Anyone can reach the world of beauty. EDO and YUMEKA's paintings are drawn as this naked, true wish.