リンゴの中に種はあるのか？(Are there seeds inside the apple?): Asami Shiode

Visentin Fine Art LTD is proud to present リンゴの中に種はあるのか？(Are there seeds inside the apple?) - the first solo show of Japanese artist Asami Shiode in Europe. The exhibition is presented at 10 Greatorex Street in London, UK and consists of a body of work where the needs of art and the principles of organic life fuse into the grainy surface of material form.

The series of works here shown emerges as the result of a common query: Are there seeds inside the [painted] apple?. The question, posed in a similar wording by Japanese critic Hanada Kiyoteru in his 1950’s essay A Meditation on Apples, tackles the impossible task of confirming the presence of seeds inside a painted fruit. It reveals the material constraints of painting as a two-dimensional medium still confined to the artist’s imagination. In reaction to this state of imagined existence, Shiode proposes an expansion of the field to a 2.5 dimensional experience, which leaps the painting into the space and suggests the promise of microbiotic expansion. In contrast with the commonly-accepted approach that sees the application of paint onto the support, the artist presses a wire mesh or coarse linen cloth onto a thickly painted base, allowing the painting to rise to the surface rather than project onto it.

One of the reasons that led the artist to develop this technique lies in the discovery of a state that she defines as “the blink of existence”. Coined as a child, the expression refers to a situation in which an enclosed space is made of opposing elements that continuously alternate, shimmering and shifting independently and in unison within the eye. Drawing on paper with conté crayon makes for a good comparison: speckles of black and white matter alternate as part of a larger surface, not diluted nor subordinated to each other, but present as independent dots that shine at various degrees of radiance. In the series Push Out, exemplified by Stroke (A/O) (2025), the pigment passes through the mesh of coarse linen and protrudes as a sprouting ecosystem shifting in and out of focus a repeated image reminiscing of Cézanne’s still lives.

Drawing on a background that bridges art, science, and philosophy, Shiode turns each canvas into an entity where matter and image are both unique to themselves and inextricable from each other. She seeks not to impose form, but to permit the existence of a territory where emergence, rupture and transformation work in synergy with the artist to reach the desired result. In questioning how painting can suggest life itself rather than its image, Shiode chooses to abandon flatness in order to embody and transcend the natural forces of entropy, fortuity and growth into the principles that govern painting. The question whether there are seeds inside the apple remains unanswered, but the process of searching for a method gives rise to a new way of thinking painting.

Asami Shiode (b.1985, Ehime Prefecture, Japan) lives and works in Tokyo, Japan. She obtained a BFA and an MFA at the Onomichi University in 2008 and 2010, and a second MFA in oil painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2017, where she obtained a Ph.D in oil painting in 2024. She's currently represented by SOM Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.