Mika Horibuchi’s paintings trick the mind into seeing what is not quite there. At first glance they’re nothing more than romanticized watercolors of landscapes or still lifes of fruit and flowers. The subject, however, isn’t where the trick lies: It’s in the materials she uses in their rendering. The paintings aren’t formed from light splashes of watercolor, but rather smears of oil paint. Despite their everyday subject matter, the paintings are part of Horibuchi’s most recent and most personal series: they are copies of her grandmother’s own hobbyist watercolors.
Instead of simply following the outline of the watercolors, Horibuchi began to re-create the photographs themselves. This forced her to include every detail present in Yokoyama’s images—from the awkward cropping to the digital time stamps hovering in the bottom left corners.
The six-by-almost-eight-foot painting depicts a small pond dotted with large rocks and bushes, set against a hazy blue sky. Ripples appear in the otherwise calm water on the left hand of a painting directly next to a date stamp that reads “2017/07/07.” Although it’s simple in its subject matter, Horibuchi explains that she chose the particular piece as the exhibition’s focal point because she saw the watercolor that inspired it as a breakthrough for her grandmother.
Through 12/2: Wed-Thu 10 AM-5 PM, Fri 10 AM-9 PM, Sat-Sun 10 AM-5 PM, Tue 10 AM-9 PM, Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660, mcachicago.org, $15, $8 students, teachers, and seniors.
