ARTIST CHIHARU SHIOTA RETURNS TO NEW YORK WITH INCREDIBLE WEB LIKE SCULPTURES
Chiharu Shiota has held exhibitions in Austria, China, Hong Kong, Italy, and Turkey in the last year alone. However, the Japanese artist is not slowing down as 2025 draws to a close. Shiota's avant-garde, web-like artwork has now arrived in New York for her second solo exhibition there.
Echoes Between, which is currently on display at Chelsea's Templon Gallery, is more of an experience than an exhibition. Given Shiota's propensity for large-scale installations that encourage immersion rather than distance, this shouldn't come as a huge surprise to those who are familiar with her work. Two such pieces of art that explore the liminal domain of the mind are on display.
Two seats are submerged beneath a cloud of glowing threads that cascade down like gentle rain in the eponymous Echoes Between. These threads occasionally split slightly during the installation, seemingly providing a break from the glowing deluge that, despite its beauty, seems to go on forever. Like a lot of Shiota's work, the piece is captivating, taking viewers through its surreal ambience and into a realm where our brains can roam, change, and acquire fresh perspectives. As Shiota points out, that experience is similar to dying, a subject she frequently addresses in her artwork.
The Soul's Journey is a comparable meditation on the mind, memory, and their ultimate destruction, if the title is any guide. With a tangle of scarlet strands, this sculpture covers the whole space and soaks up the walls. Additionally, a number of strands that resemble wings are stretched from the ceiling into the centre of the piece. The resemblance to a hovering bird is further enhanced by what looks to be a woven claw at the base. Because of the delicate nature of the thread, Shiota can soften the somewhat ominous silhouette. The artist's work, which is frequently suspended between the actual and the imagined, is exactly defined by this tension.
Echoes Between includes mixed-media canvases in addition to these sculptures. For example, Endless Line (2025) resembles a white cocoon placed against a black background, whereas Endless Line (2024) displays a crisscrossing network of scarlet thread. In contrast, Inside Memory is simply a miniature sculpture contained within a box. It resembles a small ecosystem because Shiota has braided thread into honeycomb patterns and draped them across the white frame that holds it.
"I focus on connections in my work. In a recent interview with My Modern Met, Shiota stated, "I think we are all connected, and it's impossible to be a part of society without those relationships." "The neurological system and brain, which are full of memories and our lives, are reminiscent of the web of threads."