Yumeno Goto

Long Story Short is pleased to present Attitude of Venus, a solo exhibition of twelve paintings by Yumeno Goto.

Yumeno Goto’s studio is located deep in the lush forests of Kamakura, Japan. Nourished by nature, she embarks on a journey into the wilds of oil painting. Working primarily with oil on wood, Goto’s surfaces recall the techniques of the Old Masters. Upon a glazed surface and incandescent hues, Goto stages vivid, impressionist textures, recalling the spirited tangle of Gustave Moreau as she explores the life worlds of colors and symbols.

Attitude of Venus makes explicit references to Renaissance and the latter work of the symbolists in their depictions of ancient gods and beauty, yet upon close up, traces of modern life are released across Goto’s paintings like sparks. A non-idealized countenance glimmers atop a serene-figure; visceral, textured passages ripple across limbs and open palms. Through these small, potent inflections, Goto makes a home in the thicket of art history, where she is free to focus on details like the achilles’ heel, and reimagine Christ’s stigmata, and Mary Magdalene.

In Attitude of Venus, women return to a realm where they are worshipped. Goto exalts the female nude form, which she arranges variably in solitary focus, meditating on a torso and foot, or in haunting, evocative combinations. Women create the dawn, evoke desire, and escape to Venus. They are painted in smolder of burnt umber and dark, surrounded by a corona of intensity. Her figures run between their references, fluttering between antiquity and the Renaissance, into contemporary modalities of desire and autonomy, from the self portrait, into the undying, enchanting realm of the symbol.

Yumeno Goto (b. 1996, Tokyo Japan) is a painter based in Kamakura, Japan. Attitude of Venus marks her first exhibition with Long Story Short and her first exhibition in New York.