Aki Goto

Europa is thrilled to present Aki Goto's first NYC solo exhibition, Route Is Clear.

Aki Goto is a multimedia artist utilizing video, sound, textile, performance, drawing, and painting in her daily practice. Originally from Japan, textile art brought Goto to NYC in 2009. A few years later Goto was drawn to the Catskill region as she realized the natural world as integral to her work, and it was there her art and life finally blended as one. During the early period of 2020, Goto made the most of a Covid-era lockdown by filming her children in acutely edited videos to share on social media. These videos are rich with content; from the footage we can gather the highs and lows of parenting, the raw innocence of childhood, and the uncanny ability of a young mind to be fully present at any moment. The stretches of ennui juxtaposed with bursts of drama, Goto is present for all of it. The artist edits, deciphers, and delivers these moments with profundity; incorporating the sparks of joy, vulnerability, and strangeness that parenthood ensues.

This exhibition will present the latest incarnation in Goto's work, Wish, a 15 minute video piece. Wish documents the here and now of winter, illness, and holiday season with Goto's children Senka and Yuki as the central figures. Woven throughout the video is the mysterious presence of a large red globe. The ball intersects with the children unceremoniously; sometimes menacing, sometimes comforting, oftentimes chased out of the frame. In Goto's mind, the red orb is a physical manifestation for the subconscious. The premise that human consciousness can emerge out of us to construct our reality, is vividly pronounced in a selection of recent drawings. In these renderings, the red spheres tend to hover over countenance, as if to put true desires, truest selves where their mouths are. Wishes are energy that devise our realm. In these moments, Aki Goto distills the instance our worlds are forged.