A solo exhibition by Mika Kawano, a painter known for her mystical style featuring motifs from Western mythology and the Bible with her own unique symbols, will be held. Approximately 30 oil paintings including “Sphinx” will be on display.

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MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY is pleased to present Mika Kawano’s solo exhibition “Sphinxes”. Born in Oita, Japan in 1983, Kawano completed her studies in the Research Course Arts & Culture, Department of Literature, Beppu University in 2008. She has exhibited numerous works since her student days and has gained enthusiastic support. She studied as a special student at the Institute for Figurative Painting, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria from 2018 to 2019, and has expanded her activities both in Japan and abroad, with her works exhibited at Oita Art Museum, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and a gallery in Vienna. Furthermore, a solo exhibition “Nighthawks” was held at Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto in 2020. Although her works are oil paintings, Kawano states, “I adore the expression of ma (space) unique to Japanese painting and for meticulously rendered contour lines. I paint with awareness of the Japanese perception of space”. Strange creatures are shaped by fine, soft contour lines on her pale color palette. They take on narratives by layered with butterfly wings and beads collected outdoors, and painted as direct projection of the artist’s mind. Crafted down to the texture of details, her paintings evoke the interdisciplinary Viennese art of the early 20th century, with its flat, decorative, and craft-like aesthetic sensibility. Meanwhile, Kawano creates works that uniquely combine everyday occurrences with classical Western symbols from mythology and scripture, exploring the essence of humanity—both warm and foolish.

 

The uncanny undertones concealed within a serene atmosphere, or the sudden, vivid depictions of scenes, represent Kawano’s true mastery and have been described as “Mika’s World” – a wondrous, dreamlike realm. The fulfillment of a desire to achieve identification with painting, which she terms her “best friend”, can be seen as Kawano’s motivation for creation, from the perspective of exploring the latent thoughts behind the manifest content. The unconscious, unable to express logical relationships, sometimes produces excessive visual imagery. However, consciousness attempts to hold back the intrusion of the unconscious, leading to distorted images and thoughts transformed into wordplay-like forms. The strong gravitation, created by the conflict between objective reality and psychological reality, may be why we find ourselves unable to look away from Kawano’s work.

 

The exhibition title draws from the Greek myth of the sphinx posing riddles to Oedipus during his travel. Kawano will hold a solo exhibition at Ateliermultimedia Galerie, Vienna in March 2026, followed by her first solo show at MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY in six and a half years upon her return to Japan. We invite you to enjoy the evolving world of the deepening painter.

 

The sphinxes pose riddles upon riddles. Melancholy, yet their eyes gleam.

I adore painting exactly as they wish.

When I move my brush across the canvas, I feel no sense of controlling the composition or color scheme myself. I simply paint while praying to be with them, or to dive deeper and understand them more profoundly.

—Mika Kawano