Art Fair Tokyo 2023 “Emi Katsuta: One’s Whereabouts”

Through works that combine social commentary with vibrant colors and lovable forms, Emi Katsuta has forged her own unique artistic universe.

Following last year’s solo exhibition Someone’s Whereabouts, this new show will once again explore “whereabouts” as its theme.

Even if we ourselves, or the events around us, remain unchanged, the nation, religion or other social groups that comprise our “whereabouts” can greatly impact the meaning we ascribe to our existence. While Someone’s Whereabouts explored the shifting of both physical and psychological “whereabouts” in contemporary society, One’s Whereabouts broadens the artist’s outlook to explore the presence of others.

Such presences can only be sensed via figures and shadows that are lost amid light, just as the sun, so domineering in the day, can only be sensed at night through its illuminance of the moon. By this same token, it is only through the existence of others that we can recognize ourselves.

In this way, Katsuta’s contemplation of whereabouts has directed her focus to those perspectives in which opposing elements such as good and evil, light and shadow, truth and lies, co-exist. From that vantage point, she directs her thoughts to the hidden elements which go unrepresented in the world each person sees from their own whereabouts.

“Can the world seen from one’s whereabouts really be trusted? Can the whole really be divided so easily into individual parts?” This question, which has formed in Katsuta’s mind, has no answer. However, that may be the very reason that she continues to stress the importance of observing and contemplating the material and social world.

“When you look at the works and try to look at it as someone else, not as yourself, you actually learn about the way you see the world.”

Daniel Richter (b.1962 -)

By probing our relationship with others to locate the self, Emi Katsuta’s artworks simultaneously serve as a chance for us to ponder what is seen and unseen from each person’s whereabouts and in turn enable us to overcome the uncertainty of the present.