Opening Reception – The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita at Flinn Gallery

The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita

Opening Reception: September 19 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Exhibit: September 19 through November 6

The Flinn Gallery is honored to launch its 2024-25 season with a unique solo exhibition, The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita. Curated by Leslee Asch, the exhibition displays Kumi Yamashita’s works of unconventional vision, versatility, and variety. The Opening Reception will be September 19 from 6-8pm.

Kumi Yamashita uses simple materials to yield surprising results. In describing her shadow work and the elusive qualities of light, she says, “I sculpt using both light and shadow. I construct single or multiple objects and place them in relation to a single light source. The complete artwork is therefore comprised of both the material (the solid objects) and the immaterial (the light or shadow).”

In addition to Yamashita’s Light & Shadow series, the exhibition includes provocative portraits created by winding a single unbroken sewing thread around thousands of small galvanized nails.

Equally enticing is a piece of denim in which the threads have been systematically removed  to create an enchanting portrait. Yamashita describes her process for this piece as, “Sometimes there is something beautiful about things falling apart. Undoing one thing while simultaneously creating another. Here I’ve taken fabric and pulled out bits and pieces of the lighter color thread to create the image.”

Yamashita’s work has been widely praised both nationally and internationally. Her solo shows include the Seattle Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Esplanade – Theaters on the Bay in Singapore as well as museums in Taiwan, China and Japan. She has been in numerous museum group shows, including the Louvre’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and San Francisco’s Exploratorium.

Yamashita’s work allows viewers to expand their understanding of the possibilities of the varied media she skillfully employs, and the breadth of her vision.  Curator Leslee Asch adds, “The work must be seen in person to be appreciated; expect the unexpected.”

Kumi Yamashita lives and works in Woodstock, NY. She was born in Takasaki, Japan, and received her MFA from Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, and her BFA from Cornish College of Arts in Seattle, WA. Yamashita’s work can be found in impressive public collections such as Microsoft, American Express, Le Meridien, Shenyang, China; Tokyo’s Akiru Medical Center, and permanent collections at numerous museums. 

The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita will be on view through November 6, 2024. The Flinn Gallery 2024-25 Season will offer five shows, September through June. Following The Elusive Art of Kumi Yamashita exhibition, OH WOW will run from Nov. 14 to Jan. 8; Camera-less, from Jan. 16 to March 5, 2025; Biophilia, from March 13 to April 30; and Elemental, from May 8 to June 18, 2025. More details are available at www.FlinnGallery.com.

The Flinn Gallery is proud to be voted Best Fine Art Gallery in The Best of the Gold Coast, CT, 2024, for two consecutive years by readers of the Moffly Group Publication. The Flinn Gallery is a non-profit organization sponsored by Friends of the Greenwich Library. The Gallery welcomes visitors daily Monday to Saturday, 10-5pm, Thursday until 8pm, and Sunday 1-5pm, and is located on the second floor of the Greenwich Library, 101 West Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, CT.