Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Opening Night: “Metamorphosis” by Stephanie Inagaki at Century Guild

Last Saturday, Century Guild unveiled Stephanie Inagaki’s first major solo offering, “Metamorphosis”. The gallery is filled with historical furniture and paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among these, you will find Stephanie Inagaki’s work. Inagaki is a reflection of her art and greeted visitors in an intricate black headdress of her own design. While her new paintings can be appreciated from a historical context, it’s her use of modern motifs that stands out. Read more after the jump.

Last Saturday, Century Guild unveiled Stephanie Inagaki’s first major solo offering, “Metamorphosis”. The gallery is filled with historical furniture and paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Among these, you will find Stephanie Inagaki’s work. Inagaki is a reflection of her art and greeted visitors in an intricate black headdress of her own design. While her new paintings can be appreciated from a historical context, it’s her use of modern motifs that stands out.

Each piece mixes traditional Japanese designs with abstract compositions that surround a female form, representing the artist. Four small drawings utilize color and bold textiles, each portraying a hybrid animal-goddess lying in a fetal position. At this stage of growth, they are all equals; a creature as violent as a harpy is no different from a romantic faun. On the opposite wall, the work is larger and more surreal as psychological themes are explored in black and white drawings with a single color, red, gold, or blue. One doesn’t need to know about mythology to understand Inagaki’s show because her work tells its own story. By painting herself this way, she describes the trials of her own self discovery from birth into a beautiful, young woman.

Stephanie Inagaki’s “Metamorphosis” will be on view through May 3 at Century Guild in Culver City, CA.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
The name Ed Hardy immediately evokes images of tattooed baseball tees with cartoon skulls and studded baseball hats worn by reality TV stars. But before artist Don Ed Hardy became one of the most polarizing brands in history, he was a young aspiring artist whose favorite past time was going down to the beach in Southern California and looking at classic cars. He eventually went on to study under legendary Japanese tattoo artist Horihide, an experience that had a profound influence on Hardy's signature, ornate style. Today, Hardy is retired from tattooing, instead focused on non-tattoo based art like printmaking, drawing, and painting. This also includes new porcelain works and tapestries in his upcoming exhibition curated by Varnish Fine Art gallery in San Francisco, "Visionary Subversive".
Japanese artist Izumi Kato's debut exhibition in the United States at Galerie Perrotin in New York is all about his creatures with very simplified human features and penetrating eyes. The simplistic traces in his portraits are one of the consequences of painting with no brushes or tools – only his hands and occasionally, a spatula. When Kato first started to paint, he was immersed in painting the abstract, but then he decided to try more human shapes, which can sometimes seem childlike but with an adult and eerie appearance. In his work, you can discover portrayals of a man but also a woman, cute but also ugly, a toy but also a monster.
The paintings of Japanese artist Maki Ohkojima explore our most precious possession as humans, our imagination. Imagination can be defined as making images that convey through shape, form, and emotion a reality. We are gifted with the ability to associate sounds and symbols and communicate these, think about new ideas and even crack the secrets of the universe. Ohkojima wants to paint what our bodies conceal. See more of her work after the jump.
They are "the girls behind the lace." This is how Okinawa based painter Mao Hamaguchi describes the young subjects of her romantic paintings. Her Gothic Art inspired images are painted in a soft and delicate style, where we find Contemporary aristocratic girls peeking through veils or shrouds and lace curtains. The symbol of lace is used throughout Hamaguchi's art. Lace is a sensual fabric, often associated with intimacy and pleasure, as well as wealth, once among a household's most prized possessions. Hamaguchi embraces all of its nuances, using them to emphasize the qualities of womanhood.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List