The fifth installment in the ARTIST FOCUS series is an exhibition of works by Mitake Isa, an artist from Kochi City. Mitake has been translating her interest in human perception – vision in particular – and the mystery of material existence, into artworks in the shapes of sculptures, installations and videos, with great care and intelligence.

The things she creates are charged with a sense of restraint that evokes tools for inspection or experimentation, which is underpinned by Mitake’s general stance of “not creating common things and shapes.”
Midway through her career, she started making imagery with the help of digital cameras and computers, which proved to be a perfect medium for her endeavors, considering its “non-material” quality.
“ウツス (utsusu)” in the Japanese title of this exhibition, is a verb that can be written in various ways, using Chinese (kanji) characters that can mean “to reproduce,” “to project,” or generally “to transfer (A to B).” Here it is not limited to any one of these meanings, and is thus written in (as such) meaningless katakana letters. A similar English verb would be “to cast,” either as in “to cast into shape” or as in “to cast a shadow (or shade).” The English title was chosen to describe the artist’s practice as casting both “shapes” and “shades” – creating imagery that ranges from landscapes seen through an optical device, and fossils capturing the age-old shapes of plants, to sceneries as they tend to appear in our dreams.

This first ever solo exhibition in her hometown showcases the energetic Kansai-based artist’s activities to date, with a special focus on recent works.
We hope you enjoy especially also the videos that represent Mitake’s novel attempt to interweave images from the Kochi region.

Artist Profile

MITAKE Isa 三嶽 伊紗

Born 1956 in Kochi City, currently lives in Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture. Graduated from Kyoto institute of Technology in 1980, and completed a master’s course at Kyoto City University of Arts, Graduate School of Arts, in ’82. Recent activities include a large-scale solo exhibition at The Tokushima Modern Art Museum in 2014, and participation in the group shows “Beyond the Visible” (The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, 2019) and “Lights go beyond: Mitake Isa + Moriya Yuki” (Kyoto Art Center, 2020).

Related Events

Gallery talk with the artist
The artist will talk about her work and the exhibition at the venue.
Time December 21 (Sat), 14:00
Place The Museum of Art, Kochi, Exhibition Room D
No ticket or reservation required.

Gallery talk with the curator
Time January 28, 2025 (Sat), 14:00
Place The Museum of Art, Kochi, Exhibition Room D
No ticket or reservation required.

Cross-talk
The artist and the curator in charge get together for a conversation about the exhibition and the artist’s past activities.
Time February 15, 2025 (Sat), 14:00
Guests Mitake Isa, Asakura Mei (curator at The Museum of Art, Kochi)
Place The Museum of Art, Kochi, Lecture Room
No ticket or reservation required.