Corey Helford Gallery's video: HIKARI SHIMODA Paints Hope and Despair with Sparkles English and Japanese

For more information about Hikari Shimoda's exhibit: http://www.coreyhelfordgallery.com/shows/hikari-shimoda-2017/info-press/ The movement to understand the human condition is an important exploration for any artist and one that permeates deeply within the work of Japanese artist Hikari Shimoda. Glittering with a rainbow of stars, sparkles, and skulls, her paintings capture the metamorphosis of innocence and a dying planet that awaits rescue by a cast of unlikely heroes: cute magical girls and children adorned with horns and wings. In her third solo exhibition with the gallery, “Memento Mori”, Shimoda will debut a new series of 20 oil and mixed media paintings that continues to expand on her vision of the world after Japan was struck by a tragic earthquake in 2011. Shimoda’s fasciation with religion’s role in a hopeless landscape is reflected in her new series of dashing compositions of colorful Buddahs (“Our God” and “Invisible Enemy”), dark angels (“Death and Angel”), and new portraits of mixed-race children (“Whereabouts of God”) with bright eyes and sparkling, slit throats. Another new series (“Manga”) adopts the dynamic imagery of Japanese comics to channel darker emotions such as pain, anger, and resistance. Her “Invisible Enemy” series, for instance, appropriates the fighting poses of action heroes like Sailor Moon and Ultraman, at the ready to protect and defend the world, while her “Manga” characters fully embrace humanity’s ruin. This ongoing series tells the story of a Messiah created by the human race, only to eventually destroy it and leaves two survivors. "Death and relief are the main themes for this new body of work,” Shimoda shares. “To look at the present day, where there are many people who find it hard to even live and find hope, to feel as though death is inching closer to us in the world, without looking away. Using the Buddhist Kannon as my inspiration, I wanted to express our unique practice of creating “saviors” in religion with my own contemporary deities. My paintings tell the story of the destruction of the human race, while also focusing on these contradictions between death and hope in modern times.” For up-to-date news and more: http://www.coreyhelfordgallery.com/ Stay connected with us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/coreyhelfordgallery https://twitter.com/coreyhelford https://www.instagram.com/coreyhelfordgallery/ Film by Eric Minh Swenson.