The Hikkikomori are young Japanese men in a situation of chosen isolation. It is also the title of the large-scale paintings of Ymane Chabi-Gara. From cultural discovery to language learning, Japan is at the heart of the artist’s imagination, “so far from Western references, it makes different things emerge,” she says. It is therefore her image that she glues on photographs found randomly on the Internet, oscillating between reappropriation of a globalized culture and post-internet imaginary. The word collage is not too much, because if the work is that of an accomplished painter, the form and the color are superimposed like the layers of a thought in construction, towards an abstract exploration of what the matter offers.

Represented by the Kamel Mennour Gallery
https://kamelmennour.com/artists/ymane-chabi-gara

Ana Bordenave