Dates｜November 4 – 28, 2021
Venue｜MEM  map
Telephone｜+81-3-6459-3205
Open Hours｜10:00 – 19:00 from November 4th to 7th for the duration of Art Week Tokyo
Open Hours｜13:00 – 19:00 from November, 9th to 28th
The gallery is closed on Mondays that are not national holidays. (Except when Monday falls on a holiday, in which case the gallery is open and closed the following day.)

MEM will present a retrospective exhibition of Chiyuki Sakagami who passed away 4 years ago. Her works in blue ink that exhibit extremely detailed draftsmanship with minute attention to the different aspects of composition; and her works using watercolor and Gansai, a Japanese watercolor traditionally used in Nihonga paintings due to its broad gradation of color, are her most iconic. In her autobiographical writings Sakagami expounds that “during the Precambrian Era, 590 million years ago, life was born in the sea.” She describes her art as depicting transcendental memories of the vivid blue of the earth and the sky when the atmosphere was first formed during the Silurian period. Ancient animals and mythological beasts often make appearances in her work; and she often references literature and music from east and west, ancient and contemporary. Throughout her life, Sakagami loved birds and they are the subjects of many of her works: archaeopteryxes, generally accepted to be the oldest known bird; birds of paradise; and parakeets, a particular favorite because of her relationship with them as pets. As a Christian, Sakagami prominently features verses from the Bible. The title of her Lead Us Not into Temptation series in this exhibition is reference to the Lord’s Prayer. Sakagami has said that for her, “Each and every act of composition overlaps with the act of prayer.”
For this exhibition, we have carefully selected several works from her two series Scriptures from the Birds and Positive Transference; and included On the Edge of the World, a posthumous oil painting.

This exhibition is part of Art Week Tokyo.
Art Week Tokyo