MISAKI KAWAI for Fumetto 2011. Nice Bang
all images © We Find Wildness

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Born in Japan to an architect father and a mother who liked to sew and make puppets, MISAKI KAWAI seems to have absorbed the talents of both of her parents in her own unique way.

KAWAI takes this interest in handicraft, adds her fascination with Western pop culture, and mixes it with an intuitive and architectural sense of space. What results is her mischievous vision of the world in which childhood dreams are realized through the eyes of a sophisticated artist. MISAKI KAWAI‘s whimsical installations are created from papier-mâché, wood, fabric, and other low-tech, “crafty” materials like felt, stickers, and yarn.

As for her pictures, they are often populated by lonely, sensitive and injured figures which are shown during happy moments, but the viewer quickly realizes that this happiness only lasts for a moment or only lies in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes she lets her naïve style dominate so much that important details can only be decoded by concentrating on the pictures or she constructs her installations in ways that make them look as if a family had crafted them together.

Nice Bang*, her work created exclusively for Fumetto, are based on the experiences she had while on a trip to China, Tibet, Nepal, India and Thailand. This approach is typical for the artist. She is a collector, but of impressions and feelings instead of images and things.

MISAKI KAWAI has had solo exhibitions around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Watari Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo; and has been featured in shows at PS1 and Deitch Projects in New York. She is currently represented by Take Ninagawa in Tokyo and Galleri Loyal in Sweden.

And as she stated: “Let’s make things cute, funny and weird”.

*Nice Bang is on view during Fumetto until 17 April, 2011. Additionally, her book “Blueberry Express” is now available in the WFW Store!