The Slutty Eye: Junko Yamamoto at Gallery IMA

A A A Comments (6) By David Stoesz Wednesday, Jun 17 2009

[Editor's Note: This piece has been corrected since it was first posted. It originally described Yamamoto as having arrived in Seattle "a few years ago" but she has been here for over a decade. Also, the name of the show was incorrectly given as "Shunyata." That is the name of a series of Yamamoto works, only some of which are in this exhibition.]

Courtesy Gallery IMA

Details

Gallery IMA, 123 S. Jackson St., 625-0055, galleryima.com. 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m. Tues.–Sat., noon–5 p.m. Sun. Ends June 28.

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What the heck happened to Junko Yamamoto? She instantly became one of my favorite painters a few years ago with her easy charm and reckless palette of aquamarines, pinks, and pine greens. I loved the sunny pop spirit she brought to abstraction, and the way she slathered, brushed, and stenciled her canvases with such obvious pleasure in the paint itself. The charm is still there in her current show, but the recklessness is not. Her previously wild colors have been tamed into a facile harmony of floral hues. These paintings could almost be wallpaper for a little girl's bedroom. What used to be a recognizable style has become a dispiriting sameness. A video loop of images from her paintings fails to deliver the missing jolt of energy.

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Mark Fefer 06/19/2009 10:20:00 PM

Right, but only some of the works in the series are in the show. Thanks for the initial correction Sean.
Sean 06/19/2009 8:31:00 AM

Glad to see you corrected the article. I hate to say it but your correction is also incorrect. Every piece in the show is part of the Shunyata Series.
Sean 06/18/2009 6:19:00 AM

I assume it is too late to correct the print edition but since these comments are hidden, and this isn't print perhaps you should correct the article online...
David Stoesz 06/18/2009 3:09:00 AM

You're right--I totally fucked up the name of this show. It was a stupid mistake and I apologize for it. I'm aware of the artist's timeline, but definitely could have been phrased in a less breezy way. 1998 feels like "a few years ago" to me.
J. Murr 06/18/2009 12:08:00 AM

It seems to me that that's precisely the point. The "loop" effect in the video and in the experience of walking painting to painting is what I found most compelling--these pieces do invite you in, offer an initial sense of ease, familiarity, sameness, which is what makes them feel so strange and unnerving when you find that the net effect is a sense of placelessness, an inability to locate yourself. The childlike imagery that can't quite be identified or differentiated, the dialogue that's suggested but never comes--the prefiguring or the simple absence of language, of mediation?--might all signal possibility but it might just as easily mark the opposite.
Sean 06/17/2009 11:13:00 PM

Wow. What a misinformed write up! First the name of the show is not called "Shunyata" it's "Coro coro". "Shunyata Series" is the name of the ongoing body of work. Also, Junko has been showing in Seattle since 1998, and has lived here much longer. If you are going to write a negative review, at least have the correct information.

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