A harmonious play of distance and proximity

Deciphering Chika Aruga's paintings is simply a pleasure. First of all, they welcome you in a friendly way, with a pleasantly harmonious colour composition and a shimmering variety of shapes and figures that radiate great cheerfulness and arouse curiosity. Above all, there is much to discover in the pictures, not only with the eyes, but also with one's own imagination. There are floral elements such as blossoms, trees and leaves, dancing points of light like small insects or pollen, but also landscapes, houses or even entire cities that appear when you look through the vivid thicket. In between, there are repeatedly coloured surfaces that structure the space, create horizons and generate depth, and yet, without really being empty, they wait to be filled by the viewer with an idea that gives the scenery a context.

The artist, who was born in Nagano in 1975, skilfully plays with proximity and distance, structure and figuration. Her compositions appear to be the superimposition of two perspectives. As in a double exposure of film, an almost microscopic view of delicate flora and the smallest particles overlays the broad view of distant realms and civilisational sites. Furthermore, Aruga develops her own formal language from the patterns and structures found in both the micro and macro, which permeates her images like a third layer. In this way, not only near and far, detail and cosmos are intertwined, but also object and abstraction, the tangible and the idea. A harmonious unity is never uniform; it arises from diversity and plurality, from seeming contradictions that require and depend on each other. This is what Chika Aruga, who now lives in Hamburg, Germany, makes beautifully clear in her paintings.

More about the artist: Chika Aruga's artist page