Taking the contemporary art world by storm with her powerful artworks and installations composed of delicate thread, Chiharu Shiota is best known for weaving webs of red, black, and white that transform into enthralling, labyrinthine dimensions. Often drawing from her own experiences, memories, dreams, and anxieties, the Japanese artist mesmerises the international audience by expressing the intangible, challenging common perceptions of personal identity, physical boundaries, and human existence. Having recently presented her threaded canvas works at solo shows such as at Galerie Templon in Brussels in 2021, this group is among the first examples to have been offered before at auction.

Although each of the Skin canvas works is considered a unique composition in its own right, when brought together as a group of five, they can be presented as a group in accordance to the artist's installation recommendations. When shown as a group, the vieweing experience of the works intensifies as different diagloues start to occur between each individual part.

Installation view of Chiharu Shiota, The Soul Trembles, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2021

The present groups of works, all titled Skin, beautifully condenses the essence of Shiota’s oeuvre, masterfully compacting it within the confines of individual canvases. Exquisitely intimate in comparison to the artist’s larger-than-life installations—such as her palazzo piece in the Japanese pavilion at the 56^th Venice Biennale in 2015, or at Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2021—these works fully capture the artist’s meticulous process and refined technique, each existing as an unique triumph of Shiota’s laborious approach that is instantly recognisable to the artist and can be endlessly explored.

As the title suggests, the Skin works seem to mimic a microscopic view of human skin dotted with blood vessels— as if Shiota is literally weaving life into each unique work. Indeed, upon closer inspection, the intricate thread-work comes to life, methodically designed and fastidiously executed, drawing favourable comparisons to the act of creative repetition championed by fellow Japanese contemporary art star, Yayoi Kusama. Though a poetic interpretation of the group’s title alludes to the ruby-red thread pieces being representative of the artist’s being, as if she brings her own physicality and femininity into each piece, they are at the same time, imbued with a tension that arises from the stretching and pulls of each overlapping scarlet line. Calling into question the way we perceive our identity and anatomy, the compositions pull viewers into the presence and power of Shiota’s webs, as we too, find ourselves tangled in her vision.

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net (1992)

Lot 210 of Phillips Hong Kong 20^th Century & Contemporary Art & Design Day Sale, 21 June 2022

Born in 1972 in Osaka and currently working in Berlin, Shiota studied painting at Kyoto Seika University before continuing her artistic education at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and the Berlin University of the Arts. Her stunning creations have been widely exhibited and she has enjoyed numerous international installations and solo shows, most notably her recent show at the Long Museum in Shanghai (2021), and the 2019 retrospective, The Soul Trembles, at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, which also travelled to the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; the Busan Museum of Art; the Gallery of Modern Art in Australia; and the Museum MACAN, Indonesia. The artist is represented by Gallery Templon, König Gallery, and Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea.
- Provenance
  Galerie Templon, Paris
  Acquired from the above by the present owner