Remote Universe

Outline of the exhibition

MARUEIDO JAPAN is pleased to present "Remote Universe" a solo exhibition by Shimauchi Mika.
Born in Kumamoto Prefecture in 1987, Shimauchi completed her master's degree in sculpture at Sojo University's Graduate School of Art in Kumamoto City in 2013, and after working from her base in Kumamoto Prefecture for a while, she has been setting up her studio in Miyazaki Prefecture since last year.
Shimauchi studied figurative sculpture at university, but after the earthquake in Kumamoto in 2016, she began to question her production from the very beginning. After experiencing residencies in Japan and abroad, including the U.S., she turned to the indigenous culture of southern Kyushu, where she grew up, in search of a reality for herself that is not bound by style or rules.
There remained the culture of "visiting gods" who came to this world from the other world,
The powerful, strange, and beautiful forms of these deities captivated Shimauchi.
In this exhibition, Shimauchi's unique worldview, full of humor and strong vitality, will be presented in works ranging from the terra-cotta fire works she created during her residency at the National Art Center Aomori to new works based on the theme of visiting deities.
We hope you will take this opportunity to view her works.

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I am interested in the wild power of humanity, something which has been suppressed amid excessive rationalization, and I have been making art such as baking clay in the open air.
Living in the countryside, during a daily life with restricted movement because of the coronavirus pandemic, I naturally became interested in the festivals and folk customs that still remained in my surroundings. I learned that things which I had looked upon as backward and superstitious were in fact a means to confront forces larger than ourselves and that there are local unique worldviews that are not well-known. For me today, having experienced both a pandemic and a big earthquake, I was able to feel a fresh reality.

　Some of the visiting deities in southern Kyushu look scary and they loudly chastise people and behave like savages. People do not confront them. They accept them, offer them hospitality and let visiting deities that appear once a year return home. Looking at this, I came up with an image that I can successfully fend off unmatched great powers, and as a result, I will take the initiative and control it.


　The reality is that as I live amid a rural landscape that has been modernized through various external pressures, it is probably not possible for me to officially reconnect with such roots. However, in this world where we all live together, what is real and what is fantasy, and what is sacred and what is profane all live together, and the boundaries between them are blurred. I'm trying to reconstruct this landscape and create and project it.

Shimauchi Mika