One of the exciting things about having a wide roster of artists is the span of influences and nationalities on show. At present, the only Japanese artist showing with New Blood is Emiko Aida, yet look at many of our artists’ bios and amongst shows spanning Europe and the U.S., you’re also likely to see shows in Tokyo or Kyoto. Such is the case for both Niall Stevenson and Jan Valik, artists with international CVs that include solo shows in Japan, in Stevenson’s case three solo exhibitions and in Valik’s case, a residency in Yokohama. These experiences can’t help but shape one’s work and the richness of both artists’ practices surely owes something to their international exhibition records.
For Aida too, the experience of having moved to London from Japan aged 20 before spending the next 20 years in London is manifest in her paintings. It mediates between traditions and cultures, between cities and spaces, asking questions of belonging and direction. Visiting Kyoto as an adult, she came across monks meditating on a black polished floor, surrounded by golden walls and features, the monks appeared to be floating. Since this point, depicting something subtle, invisible, and intangible, has motivated her work.
Lastly, we might consider the influence of the great Japanese printmaker Hokusai on contemporary art. So familiar are his woodblock prints that it is hard to picture woodblock printmaking without recalling his famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Looking at Eleni Maragaki’s prints is a case in point. Her images are distinctively her own, peculiar and idiosyncratic, yet the clean lines and landscape setting surely nod to Hokusai. An acknowledgement that nothing happens in isolation and the present is always in debt to the past.