KAYOKOYUKI

SLASH is a series of two-person exhibitions each as a collaborative project rather than mere juxtaposition of works by the two artists featured. Each exhibition begins with consecutive meetings to develop mutual understandings, learning each other’s vision and awareness. Discussing what kind of proposition to make toward society with their work, and going through all the possibilities, they would little by little build up their plan for the exhibition.
Even the invitation card is designed as a collaborative artwork. In relation to the artist's common interests, several key words are picked up and transformed into an abstract concept to which the art director CRAFTIVE would elaborately gives form with reasonable materials and methodologies.
I believe it is quite important to exchange ideas with others and take the initiative to create new values together, not following given directions set by certain powerful artists or curators, nor leaving it up to the trend of the times. Rather than trusting individual self-absorbed thinking, nor being worried about winning or losing, we just have to believe in the prolific imagination arising at the intersection of different ideas.

*SLASH derives from a type of fan fiction with the same name that focuses on a paring of two characters. The name arises from the use of the slash symbol (/) to separate the two names in those stories, instead of using of the ampersand (&) conventionally.

Shingo Aruga (b.1983) created paintings and illustrations using yellow and black as his key colors, the former was a soul the color of light and the latter was a shadow, representing the darkness. He captures those things that on the surface have been deleted, hidden in the shadows, similar to how an x-ray exposes the insides of living creatures. We perceive this through a common consciousness that connects us to strangers, like the network of cells and veins that pound within each of us or the waterways that crisscross the surface of the earth.
Nile Koetting (b.1989) is making work around the theme of rousing memory and feeling through sound. He does this through sound, image and space installations, allowing the five senses to experience a common feeling of coming and going. It causes the body to vibrate, transcending the individual or gender and making the resonance possible.
The title “Syntactile” is composed of the word “syntax”, which refers to the method of composing words by bonding one word to another, and the word “tactile” which refers to the sense of touch. This two person exhibition goes beyond the communication that can happen through language. It appeals to more of an internal image, through the shifting five senses, substituting something different for the everyday, from sound to color, shape to smell, or abruptly evoking completely different memories of time and places.