Combing the country for the most interesting gallery shows in America each month, Galerie journeyed from New York, where Kennedy Yanko is showing her hybrid artworks with Jeffrey Deitch and Gerhard Richter is making his solo debut at David Zwirner, to the West Coast, where Sam Falls is presenting artworks made from plant life and farm fences at San Francisco’s Jessica Silverman and Mindy Shapero is displaying goth works of art made with mirrors and kitsch bric-a-brac at Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles.
These are the top one-person exhibitions at U.S. galleries in April.
Asuka Anastacia Ogawa at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
A figurative painter employing folkloric imagery with androgynous characters engaged in ritualistic activities, Asuka Anastacia Ogawa draws upon her mixed Japanese and Brazilian heritage for her charming, pseudo-naïve style works. Born in Japan to a Japanese father and Brazilian mother, the artist was raised in Brazil and Sweden and educated in London, before finally splitting her time between New York and Los Angeles. Mining her migratory experiences in her narrative works, she references cultural myths and spiritual practices of the places she has lived.
The dozen paintings, which range from small to very large, in her pedra exhibition are informed by the artist’s studies of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, and the polytheist and animist practices of the local religions in both Japan and Brazil. Flatly-painted characters practice healing rituals, make spiritual offerings and perform ceremonial dances. Her mystical painting open shows a shaman and believer in a spiritual realm, while other canvases in the show convey holistic forms of sacred enlightenment and restorative therapies—ways of the world that Ogawa wants to share through her art.