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Artist Statement:
Reiko Michisaki uses to
collage to unravel a mystery.
Using psychotherapy
techniques, such as dream
analysis, she communicates
with alter egos that developed
during her childhood.
Employing images and symbols
as a language, Reiko has
cultivated a relationship with
eight personalities.
Developed over a 17-year
period, she finds that the
personalities readily appear
when she does art. Each
collage tells a piece of a
story, like a chapter in a
book, and the collective
series of collages is a
vibrant and provocative
journal of healing.
Dreams and trances provide the
themes for her art, “Where
dreams reveal that which is
suppressed, my collages are
subliminal dreams”. She
finds using collage work well
to depict the often jumbled
world of dreams. The images
are representational of
emotions and beliefs, and
often appear as recurrent
symbols. A symbol such as the
hand, for example, represents
activity from the primary ego,
water is emotions, and birds
symbolize the multiple
personalities. As metaphors,
the symbols communicate
messages from the psyche, the
forces that influence thoughts
and behavior.
When Reiko creates a collage
she tries to put herself in a
trance-like state, not
consciously selecting images
but allowing the instinctual
choices to emerge. ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
2009 `Mi Casa, Tu Casa',
Pajaro Valley Arts Council
Gallery, Watsonville, CA
2009 ‘Assemblage + Collage +
Construction’, Museum of Art
and History, Santa Cruz, CA
2009 ‘Piecing it Together:
Collage as Therapy’,
Michaelangelo Gallery, Santa
Cruz, CA
2009 ‘Student Show, Summer
Workshops’, Cabrillo College
Gallery, Aptos, CA
2008 ‘Student Show, Summer
...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Reiko Michisaki:
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Piecing it Together
Written by Jonathan Lopez
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Western philosophy dates Aristotle as the first to propose the notion of tabula rasa. The basic idea is that each person is born as a “blank slate,” or, in other words, an empty vessel into which life pours the fragments of experience, knowledge and concepts to shape the being. This model could be applied to Reiko Michisaki’s current exhibition, “Piecing it Together,” wherein she “unravel(s) the mystery of me through collages. Where dreams reveal that which is suppressed, my collages are subliminal dreams.” Michisaki’s eclectic interpretations span 40 vibrant, exotic pieces.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Michaelangelo Gallery and Studios, 1111 River St., Santa Cruz. 426-5500. Exhibit runs through March 29.
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Piecing It Together: Collage as Therapy
Through March 29* 2009
Michaelangelo Gallery, 1111 River St., Santa Cruz. www.michaelangelo gallery.net; 831.426.5500
Reiko Michisaki discovered collage while working with a therapist to deal with deeply repressed emotions related to a childhood trauma. Often inspired by strong images that occur in dreams, Michisaki goes through magazines, tearing out pictures that appeal to her, then pieces the images together in intriguing compositions that, to the artist, seem like dreams "because dreams are so jumbled and disconnected and have an element of time. I try to tap into the subconscious and let these images come out freely. Sometimes I don't understand what they mean." Michaelangelo Gallery's Angelo Grova was "very moved" when he saw this body of work by his former student.
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