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Mika Kato
Mika Kato paints exquisitely rendered portraits of young girls in precise, hyper-real detail, an approach countered by what are often looming and close-cropped compositions, as if the subjects had been viewed through a bulbous, fish eye lens.
Kato’s portraits have a specific, articulated beauty: perfect oval faces, small noses and huge dark eyes that appear like pierced holes in the canvas. These portraits offer the viewer a mutated idea of what ideal beauty should be, an aberration of perfect form that provide glimpses into a fantastical and disturbing world. Kato’s process is deliberately laborious and studied: she starts by sculpting a doll out of clay before dressing and then painting an image of it, a process that allows the doll to become a kind of alter ego as the painting develops. Occasionally, an additional element such as an animal skull serves as a memento mori, or scarves and hats are added to create hint at the character of her fictional girls. But Kato rarely provides any extraneous detail, which lends her subjects a disembodied quality, enhanced by the way Kato rounds off the corners of her canvases so that they take on the shape of an old TV screen. Kato’s stylised and very particular vision not only references the preoccupation with idealised forms and youthful beauty in Manga, but also Surrealism, especially the dolls of Hans Bellmer and the erotic fantasies of Salvador Dali.
Mika Kato was born in 1975 in Mie Prefecture, Japan. She has exhibited internationally in several international group exhibitions including ‘New Generation Japanese Painters’, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, ‘Casino’, SMAK, Gent (2001), ‘Coloriage’, Fondation Cartier, Paris (2002) and ‘Roppongi Crossing’, Mori Art Museum (2004). Solo exhibitions include Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo (2000), Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki (2001-2) and White Cube, London (2005).
More on Mika Kato
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| Exhibitions | |
| Mika Kato 21 Jan—26 Feb 2005 | |
 | Related Links |
| http://www.norton.org/Exhib... Norton Art Museum, Oregon, West Palm Beach, FL | |
| http://www.tomiokoyamagalle... Tomio Kayama Gallery, Tokyo | |
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