Mymicrogallery is pleased to present, from March 21st to April 7th, “Wagamama,” the first solo exhibition in Italy by Japanese artist Midori McCabe, curated by Stefania Carrozzini. The title “Wagamama” (translated as “as I am”) refers to the creative process in relation to identity and individual sensitivity. Midori McCabe’s research, centered within the realm of abstraction, brings forth original formal syntheses through the strength and energy of the expressive gesture.

An essential part of Midori McCabe’s work is the interaction between mark and color—a mark that flows and becomes mass, a clue, but also a constellation, a space. For Midori, art is a home to inhabit; the perimeter of the painting is a house, a seemingly defined boundary upon which to inscribe emotions and where all aspects of one’s self can be expressed.

The creative process becomes a true method of knowledge; the artist seeks, discovers, and reveals the signs of memory, recording traces and imprints, establishing a vital and dynamic relationship between herself and the world, between the self and matter. The relationships between warm and cold, between open and closed forms, reveal themselves as a geography of moods never interrupted by the requirements of rational thought or rigid formal rules.

Thus, her work is the testimony of a process that reveals the unity of the subject, of our being in flux, with a human gesture of transmitting and storytelling—laying oneself bare for who one is and presenting one’s own authenticity. For Midori McCabe, the key to all of this is to be found in the acceptance of the non-figurative as the absolute premise for imagining and for pictorial construction. It is painting that does not seek to represent, but rather serves to express history and life—a fluid lava reflecting inner rhythms, intervals and distances, and flows of thought that transform into action.

The artist’s intervention can manifest through a single mark generated by automatism, which connects with other more expanded forms, creating a complex spatiality thick with symbolic references and relationships between signs. Midori McCabe’s visual alphabet reveals a propensity for detail, a map of emotions made visible through chromatic assonances and perceptual stimuli, using combinations of forms that self-generate like cellular tissue between extroverted and spontaneous gestures. It is a creative play that produces wonder, in the conviction that such a process leads to awareness and self-knowledge, connecting different worlds, offering a close-up look at one’s own inner universe, and amplifying resonances in the truth of what one is.

Observing the exhibition, it becomes clear that the enigma of the title refers to a subjective dimension, with the courage to declare one’s own personality, joining that sense of mystery regarding existential value and the dual relationship of art/life identity so important in our culture.

The artist will be present at the opening.

Midori McCabe was born in Japan, lived in London, and now lives and works in California. She has exhibited extensively in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States.