Megumi Shauna Arai: Sinew
KOKI ARTS is pleased to present Sinew, the first solo exhibition in Japan by New York–based artist Megumi Shauna Arai. This exhibition features new works that seek to reframe traditional understandings of strength and resilience. The title of the exhibition conjures the many definitions of sinew: tissues that live between muscle and bone, allowing movement in the bodies of mammals; durable fibers used to thread, sew, and bind; power.
Sinew marks a burgeoning chapter in Arai’s practice, one that emerges from unexpected journeys as well as carefully selected parameters and exercises. From these parallel guidelines come a scale and material language previously unseen in Arai’s pieces. Produced across consecutive international residencies, these new works operate on a smaller scale, beckoning viewers to look closely. Each textile of stretched silk shares a singular world of multi-colored washes and patterns inspired by auxetic geometry. The artist’s recent immersion into the practice of Qigong (tendon meridian form) has built an intuitive pull towards meditations of slow, calculated, and methodological movements. Such tendencies seep into her creative process; each work undergoes more than ten distinct steps of stretching, drawing, drying, washing, and more. Each step, even the most invisible, is offered the same attention—a prolonged look, ample patience.
Arai is interested in the connections between the various definitions of ‘sinew’ as well as the muted nature of the word—overshadowed by its iconically strong neighbors of muscle and bone, yet ‘sinew’ is the only one that holds the literal meaning of strength. The works in this exhibition ask viewers to pause and imagine what they may be missing. Their delicate size and jewel-toned palette disguise layers of labor, material, and time—gently waiting to be exposed. Sinew is both strength and flexibility; Sinew is both arrival and return.
—Claire Kim
Claire Kim is a curator and writer based in New York City. She is currently the Director of Programs, Collections and Exhibitions at Asia Art Archive in America. She also serves as the Director of Curatorial Affairs at The Here and There Collective. Kim was previously the Special Assistant to the President at BRIC, in Brooklyn, as well as a 2020–21 Curatorial Fellow at NXTHVN, in New Haven, CT. She has worked in museum education and programming with arts organizations, including the New Museum, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Cue Art Foundation, Asian American Arts Alliance, among others. She has organized exhibitions at James Cohan Gallery (New York); Hessel Museum of Art (CCS Bard, NY); Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (New York); Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (Brooklyn); and BRIC (Brooklyn). Kim completed her MA at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.