Ayumi Okita reinterprets lacquer paintings that have developed in East and Southeast Asia, regions where lacquer trees grow, from her unique perspective. These art forms, known as “sơn mài” in Vietnam and “qī huà”in China, never fully took root in Japan due to their ambiguous position between painting and craft. However, Okita sees beauty in this duality and has been exploring the intersection of art for the eye and art for the hand, a reunion of the visual and tactile senses. Recently, she has broadened her focus to the continuity between humans and the natural environment by returning to the nature of lacquer as a plant.
In this exhibition, Okita metaphorically see the lacquer extracted from wounded tree bark as a drop of blood, and through the repeated process of polishing and drawing, she observes the autonomous changes that lacquer undergoes. She describes the process as being "as if facing a human with emotions." The works on display represent a series in which Okita positions lacquer as a co-creator.