Iwasaki Kanaha solo exhibition "The story of the snake butterfly"
shimokitazawaartsA story about snakes, butterflies and snake butterflies by Iwasaki Kanaha.
June 6 - 22, 2025
1-7 pm
Closed on Mon, Tue and Wed.
*opening reception：June 6, 5-7pm
*Anyone can participate in the reception.
Shimokitazawa Arts is please to present Iwasaki Kanaha's solo exhibition "The story of the snake butterfly." Iwasaki Kanaha was born in Okinawa Pref. in 1996, graduated from the Department of Painting, Faculty of Fine Arts, Tama Art University in 2020, and completed the Master's program in Painting, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tama Art University in 2022. She is a young artist who has been actively exhibiting both at home and abroad.
Iwasaki has created fantastical pictorial spaces woven with unique creatures inspired by myths, novels, and other sources. Based on her past experiences, she is attempting something new in this solo exhibition. In the exhibition, Iwasaki will create a story called "The story of the snake butterfly," featuring snakes and butterflies, motifs that appear repeatedly in her work, and will present works based on this story. Please come and visit the sad, scary, warm and slightly mysterious world of Iwasaki Kanaha's "The story of the snake butterfly."
Artist statement
For this exhibition, I wrote a story called "The story of the snake butterfly." "Snakes" and "butterflies" are images that I have repeatedly used in my works, so I feel that this story is one that was constructed from my own artistic production.
I first constructed the images I had been working with into a series of stories, and then created paintings based on that story. The story then began to be broken down again into parts and characters, and then reconstructed further.
Lévi-Strauss explained that the meaning of a myth is a "bundle of events" that "must be understood as a whole," and compared it to a piece of music or an orchestral score.
I think this also applies to painting.
Although the story I created is not a myth, the act of creating a painting based on a story was naturally an act of dividing the flow of the story into several "events."
Lines extend from each part like the antennae of a butterfly, and they connect together regardless of whether they are inside or outside the story, before or after, and ultimately culminate in a "bundle of events."
This exhibition does not recreate a story, nor does the story explain the works.
I'm holding this exhibition with the aim of showing how the "bundle of events" is continually reconstructed depending on the viewer and the place, and how the story moves and changes.
Iwasaki Kanaha
Born in Okinawa, Japan, 1996.
2020 BFA of oil painting, Tama Art University, Tokyo
2022 MFA of painting, Tama Art University Graduate School, Tokyo
Selected exhibition
2025
Kanaha Iwasaki × Yoshiyuki Umehara Duo Exhibition "Exchange Notebook" ARTDYNE, Tokyo
2024
solo exhibition "In the window, outside the house" KATSUYA SUSUKI GALLERY, Tokyo
group exhibition "Look into the water" Shimokitazawa Arts, Tokyo
solo exhibition "Do you remember?" GALERIE OVO, Taipei, Taiwan
2023
solo exhibition "Surrounding things" OIL by Bijutsutecho, Tokyo
solo exhibition, Artist in Residence Exhibition in Madrid, LEA-Lab of Experimental Art, Madrid, Spain
solo exhibition "motion・decoration" THE LOOP GALLERY, Tokyo
solo exhibition "Thinking of the Far Away" MATTER, Tokyo
solo exhibition "The moon is in the next room" KATSUYA SUSUKI GALLERY, Tokyo
2022
solo exhibition "Dream on 7legs" Shimokitazawa Arts, Tokyo
