E’wao Kagoshima / Kazumi Tanaka / Mamie Tinkler
Voyage
November 15—December 21, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, November 15, 6—8 pm
Mamie Tinkler, Malachite Voyage, 2024. Oil on dibond, 9 x 12 inches / 22.9 x 30.5 cm
Ulterior Gallery is pleased to present Voyage, a group exhibition featuring E’wao Kagoshima, Kazumi Tanaka, and Mamie Tinkler.
The exhibition title, Voyage, is drawn from Mamie Tinkler’s newest oil painting, Malachite Voyage. Her work features a small animal’s skull rendered in dynamic colors and dramatic lighting, abstracted as if melting into the surrounding scene. Known for her work in watercolor, Tinkler will be exhibiting oil paintings for the first time in her career, exploring a new realm in a time-honored material. Utilizing the traditional still-life vocabulary, she employs photorealism as a part of her process. The shift in medium has allowed her to forge a fresh, richly textured connection between her artistic vision and the history of painting, as well as the history of optics.
At the center of the gallery, Kazumi Tanaka’s sculpture, Star, presents a contrasting perspective on natural remnants. Crafted from a male deer skull found at Magitoga’s Woodland Garden in Garrison, NY, Tanaka transformed this artifact into an artwork that also functions as a harp. In engaging with the skull, Tanaka sought to attune herself to the object, discovering what it “needed” to sustain itself. The result is a piece that, although skeletal and silent on its own, regains a surreal vitality as it interacts with the living.
E’wao Kagoshima’s works create a sense of playful disorientation, moving freely between divergent images and formats. His surrealist compositions often lead viewers down unexpected narrative paths, each image building on the next. In his 2016 painting, Utopia / Dystopia, a baby is sleeping between the horizon and a shaded moon, floating in an ambiguous space. These visual and conceptual associations reflect his exploration of personal and cultural narratives—as he draws and paints, Kagoshima dissects his own interpretations of his images and stories.
The title Voyage also evokes the journey of celestial navigation, once guided by luminous stars in the dark night sky. Through unconventional materials and diverse styles, Kagoshima, Tanaka, and Tinkler guide viewers on a journey that blurs the line between objective reality and the irrational. Each artist, in their own way, invites us into a realm where objects, memories, and landscapes take on new, otherworldly significance.
E'wao Kagoshima (b. 1945, Niigata, Japan) graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts in 1969. He has been exhibiting extensively since moving to New York in the mid-1970s, where he continues to live and work. Currently, his work is on view in Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City (1969-2001) at 80WSE, New York University, NY, through December 20, 2024. Kagoshima’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions including: MoMA PS1, Queens, NY (2021, 2010); The Box, Los Angeles, CA (2018, solo); the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2018); Greenspon Gallery (2018, solo), New York, NY; Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich, Switzerland (2016, solo); the Jewish Museum, New York, NY (2015); the Sculpture Center, New York, NY (2013); Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York, NY (2008, 1997, solo); the New Museum, New York, NY (1983); the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK (1982); Japan Society, New York, NY (1979); Nagai Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (1976, solo); and Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (1971) among others.
Kazumi Tanaka (b.1962, Osaka, Japan) graduated from Osaka University in 1985 and moved to New York in 1987, studying sculpture at the New York Studio School until 1990. A recipient of a 2017 Tiffany Foundation Grant and a 2023 Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant. Tanaka is preparing new work for Believers: Artists and Shakers, opening in February 2025 at the ICA Boston, MA. She has participated in notable residencies including: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1990) and McDowell (2013). Tanaka exhibits at museums and galleries internationally including Fridman Gallery, Beacon, NY (2022, solo); Civetella Ranieri for the Venice Biennale, Italy (2019); Kunming Art Biennale, Yunnan Art Museum, Yunnan, China (2018); Miyauchi Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan (2015); Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA (2011, solo); the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2002); the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, Portland, MA (1997); the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY (1996 & 1993 solo); and Kent Gallery, New York, NY (1995, solo).
Mamie Tinkler (b. 1978m Memphis, TN) grew up in Brighton, TN and lives and works in New York, NY. She earned her BA from Columbia University in 2000 and an MFA from Hunter College in 2005. Tinkler’s exhibitions and works have received coverage in the New York Times, Artforum, Patron Magazine, and Modern Painters, among others. Her work will be included in the upcoming group exhibition at LA MoCA, Ordinary People: Photorealism and the Work of Art since 1968, curated by Anna Katz..Tinkler has exhibited at; Ulterior Gallery, New York, NY (2023, 2020, solo); Tops Gallery, Memphis, TN (2023, solo); The Armory Show, New York, NY (2020); The Suburban, Oak Park, IL (2015, solo); Mitchell-Innes & Nash (2014); and Rachel Uffner Gallery (2011) among others.