Arisa Kumagai

Arisa Kumagai was born in 1991 in Osaka. She lives and works in Kyoto. She graduated the Kyoto University of the Arts in 2013 majoring in painting, and finished the graduate course of Mixed Media Field also at Kyoto University of the Arts in 2015.

Her work indeed reflects her personal experiences. However, what she tries to express is the vulnerability and “helplessness” of human being; how irrational and ironic it may seem, it is a universal truth that rich and poor, life and death, love and hate are one and indivisible. Her masterful realism may be a catharsis, giving form to what she had to see.
The works from the series Leisure Class shown at the “Portrait” exhibition visualized the way of thinking, formed in the course of her upbringing. For this exhibition, she paid more attention to the feeling of others around her, to deepen the original concept. The emotional disturbance incurred by death may in some cases be reflected in the form of dedicated flower, or an object of worship. The children’s shoes or a leather jacket with the deceased’s memory could affect the heart of the ones who were left behind. The artwork depicting such relic, observed through an unimpassioned eye, seems to present an aspect of human nature.
(Gallery Koyanagi)