His Last Bow

Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix

6 September - 21 November

Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix is pleased to present “His Last Bow” of Erika Kobayashi, the first showing of the Tokyo-based artist in the UK, comprising works of photography, moving images, texts, drawings and printed materials.

Kobayashi is not only a visual artist but also a full-fledged manga creator and a respected author in her country, regularly contributing to literary and other magazines. The subject matters for Kobayashi’s oeuvre stay constant across diverse media: radiation, uranium and light. The artist develops the issues based on historical incidents and subtleties of personalities involved, intricately weaving them with passages from the diaries of her late father, a psychiatrist and a renowned Sherlock Holmes scholar, with nonchalant daily conversations with friends, or with life of imaginary young girls who symbolise the contemporary society. Juxtaposed episodes appeal to sensitivities and emotions common across cultures and generations, as they slowly merge and guide the perspective towards the social awareness.

The present exhibition is constructed upon the undercurrent provided by the newly written text “His Last Bow” that speaks of universal sentiment of fathers, and of historical events and episodes concerning the uranium and radiation. Throughout the show, constant is the idea that light as a metaphor for presence, though in some of the works, the perpetual concept may be lurked below the upper layers referring to human emotions deemed insignificant within epoch-making turns of history. Kobayashi projects light, as a torch, over the tiniest of incidents or the smallest of emotions that actually took place but have been largely overlooked in the broad context of History, and by doing so, she gives rise to hopes and expectations towards the world we live in at present and in the future.

Image: installation view, photo Alexander Christie