Praise Shadows Art Gallery, the first Boston-based gallery invited to exhibit at the Independent Art Fair, presents a two-woman exhibition by Japanese artist Yuri Shimojo and Taiwanese American artist Yu-Wen Wu. This presentation follows a stellar 2021 for the artists, each of whom had critically acclaimed solo exhibitions at Praise Shadows. The gallery is thrilled to bring their works to the attention of a wider audience during New York Art Week.
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Yuri Shimojo
Shimojo, who is based between New York City and Kyoto, will show publicly for the first time her painting series Sumi and Shu. Focused entirely on a red cinnabar and black sumi ink palette on paper, the artist takes traditional Japanese ink sticks and grinds them to a deep black and red. Her technique and practice are entirely contemporary, highly abstract, and bordering on surreal. The paintings communicate a universal compassion while also expressing the interconnected emotions of joy and pain. For Independent, the artist will unveil her newest work titled Life (2022), a nearly life-size painting completed during her last rounds of chemotherapy. She will be a featured artist in the upcoming feature documentary The Colour of Ink, premiering in 2023. Her works are in major private collections around the world, as well as institutional collections such as The Cleveland Clinic, Fidelity, and others.
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Yu-Wen Wu
Wu is a Boston-based artist who works with materials to immaculate and surprising results. She uses her artwork to explore stories of migration, particularly of the Asian American experience. For Independent, Wu will exhibit a diverse selection of new work, including a large drawing of the moon, one of her favorite subjects. Also included are three ceiling-high strands of bundled Taiwanese tea, gilded, and wrapped in red string to create cascading Buddhist meditation beads. Additionally, a 20-foot-long scroll titled Walking To Taipei will also be displayed for the first time in New York, after it was shown in Boston. This work took 10 years to complete and is experienced in the manner of a Chinese landscape scroll. Based on a 2011 Google Maps search when Wu was trying to get back to Taipei to see her ailing grandmother, the scroll features walking directions from Boston to Taipei that takes the viewer through the Continental US by foot, swimming and kayaking through the Pacific Ocean with stops in Hawaii and Japan, then finally by foot again to Taipei. It is a journey by way of technology, longing for home, and art historical references to Chinese classical art.
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