The Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art is proud to present the latest holding of our ongoing series of “Quintet” exhibitions featuring each year a selection of five promising mid-career artists. The first and second editions of the Quintet exhibitions focused on the theme of ‘landscape’, while the third was focused on ‘nature’, and each time large numbers of viewers have appreciated the fascinating reverberations these shared themes create between the works of the different artists.
In this fourth edition of the series, “Quintet　Ⅳ,” we present 83 recent or new works by Emiko Aoki, Miyuki Takenaka, Migiwa Tanaka, Misa Funai and Kumiko Moroi. All five are artists who after graduation from art university have continued their artistic activities with strong principle and conviction, showing their works in exhibitions such as our museum’s Outstanding Rising Artists Exhibition and FACE exhibitions, the VOCA Exhibition and the Shell Art Award Exhibition, and in the process have built their own unique worlds of artistic expression.
The theme for this year’s Quintet exhibition is “Between the Figurative and the Abstract.” Paul Gauguin said that ‘Art is an abstraction,’ and he sought to bring new concepts and philosophical elements into his painting. Although it is surely with no conscious awareness that they are following Gauguin’s revolutionary precedent, the five women participating in this exhibition are artists whose works, composed of lines drawn from the intellect and colors that flow intuitively from their sensibilities, are created within the amplitude of the world they perceive and the self they must express. Viewing these works, created by artists who are our contemporaries, certainly offers us a profound glimpse into “Zeitgeist” the spirit of the age we live in.
In closing, we wish to express our gratitude to the participating artists and collectors for lending us the works on display and to all who have offered invaluable assistance in making this exhibition possible. We also hope that participation in this Quintet exhibition will prove to be a springboard to further achievement and success for these artists.