The Ultimate Magic to Save Us is You

Venue

The Muse at 269 Gallery/Studio

Starts

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Ends

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Address

269 Portobello Rd London W11 1LR

Location

London

Organiser

The Muse at 269 Gallery/Studio

Opening Night:
Wednesday, 1st April,
6.30-9.00pm

26.03-12.04.2015

Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

-Dorothy from Wizard of OZ

“When I was a child, my grandmother used magic all the time. Whenever I cried, she appeared from nowhere to give me a cuddle. Even when I was hiding, she always found me without failure. Once I stopped crying, she disappeared leaving the puff of lovely perfume.

When she was lying in her hospital bed, I was wondering why she did not use her magic to get better. I knew she would come back laughing, and knew she would give me a cuddle after I stopped crying. She never did. I kept crying and nobody turned up. She lost her magic and never found it again.

Almost thirty years have gone by, I still believe in the magic she used on me. Sometimes feeling totally defeated by the world that darkens my sight, but the little magic she left still warms somewhere deep under my skin, gives me a beacon to move forward.

‘The Ultimate Magic to Save Us is You’ is a collection of my artwork focusing on the notion of magic and the journey to rediscovery: the magic we all believed once in our childhood, the magic we subsequently lost in the name of growing up. Although the journey to reclaim the magic I once believed has created a conflict between the magic of innocence and my adult self, it soon has become my obsession. This obsession lost its own original purpose and its own goal, became a symbolic ritual without any real possibilities of regaining the magic I lost. The notion of losing innocence and paradoxically, also losing my adult identity is what I have been struggling with both personally and artistically. Between the dichotomy it created, the magic appeared to be buried, blinded and forgotten. Revisiting the childhood experience of repression has revealed a way to understand myself in the world both in my past and my present. It brightened the right path to the magic I once gave up, not directing the labyrinth my obsession created. Sadly, it is also a path to the realisation of the ultimate magic you have been searching for has never existed. The magic has always been the existence of somebody, not a spell or a broomstick. It has always been ‘you’.

This exhibition is a conclusive part of last two solo exhibitions I held in the past: ‘A Shapeshifting World’ and ‘The Magic We Lost’ in London and Brussels respectively. Some works reappear, some create a new context. With this exhibition, I would like you experience the journey to lose, rediscover and shift of the magic I once had. The journey to the world of limitless possibilities we used to believe, the potential to become whatever we wanted to become, is the hope I lost, and am determined to regain. These drawings are the fragments of my ultimate magic to save us: the magic I will lose again and rediscover repeatedly. Hopefully, they will take you to the place where you left it. ”
/Takayuki Hara/
BIO:

Born in Tokyo, Japan, London-based artist Takayuki Hara’s work evolves from the idea of shapeshifting: it is an antithesis of boundaries and intransigence of human tendencies. His unique ability lies within the transformation of this idea into graphic and intricate linear drawings. His seemingly eclectic collections of influences are tied together and well-digested, feeding his work visually and conceptually. Hara studied Japanese Literature: Creative Writing in Japan, the rich narrative elements of his work come from the background as a writer. His work has been exhibited widely in the Uk, and internationally including United States, Germany and Poland, and numerous Art Fairs across the globe. Recently his work was shown in European Parliament in Brussells, and he is comissioned to have a solo show at Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow, Poland in 2015.

www.themuseat269.com
www.takayukihara.com
[email protected]
269 Portobello Rd
London W11 1LR