Misaki Kawai Solo Exhibition at The Hole NYC
The fourth solo exhibition by Misaki Kawai opened recently at The Hole. “Moko Moko Doki Doki” or “fluffy excited, heartbeat” exhibits her first text paintings. Her giant pettable sculptures have rudimentary faces like emojis.
Building on her work from the Honolulu Biennial and the current National Gallery of Victoria Triennial in Australia, Misaki shares open and inviting works with the public to build connection through art. The paintings compliment the sculptures with repeated faces and words. Words like “chu” (kiss), “suki” (like), “peko peko” (hungry), “pero pero” (licking), “kuru kuru” (spinning). In summary, Kawai creates a zone of creative play; bold, colorful and immersive.
Kawai has held exhibitions around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; Malmö Konsthall in Sweden; Children’s Museum of Arts in New York; and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. Her works have been featured in group exhibitions at MoMA PS1 and Deitch Projects in New York. Kawai has had recent solo exhibitions in Tokyo with Take Ninagawa and V1 in Copenhagen, as well as a traveling exhibition in South Korea.
Kawai creates a zone of creative play
Misaki describes her style of making art as heta-uma. This translates to ‘bad but good’, and prioritises a good idea over skill or perfection. In Japan, heta-uma imagery is used in advertising and packaging as well as pictures in newspapers.
Other previous exhibits include Moja Moja Life and Fluffy Days. The former being an indoor playground featuring a display of colourful, furry sculptures of dogs and a puppet studio. All of which are interactive with sounds and videos triggered by varying installations. When asked about her inspiration for her shows she replied, “fluffy kitty and fluffy bunny”. With a style self described as, “wobbly as possible, wobbly line, wobbly hand, wobbly brain.”
Check out the full gallery here. Support other NYC art galleries like MoMa PS1, Whitney Museum of Art, and New Museum.
Exhibition open until February 14th
Check out other events here!
