Yutaka Kikutake Gallery Roppongi is pleased to present Between Dimensions, a solo show by Reina Mikame (born in 1992 in Aichi Prefecture, currently based in the Kanto and Chubu regions) scheduled to be held from November 1st to December 13th. Mikame’s work, which has investigated perception and imagery through elements such as line, color, and light, approaches abstraction with a new perspective for this show. The title, Between Dimensions, references the artist’s awareness of issues regarding the shift from three-dimensional space to the two-dimensional world of painting, and the use of abstraction as a formal approach for expressing the phenomenological essence and disparity highlighted through this shift. The body of work for this show, primarily made up of new paintings, depicts new subjects of gravity, light, and spatial perception. Mikame’s approach for this exhibition can be seen as an attempt to address the various developments in abstract painting up to the present day through a reexamination of her own paintings from a historical perspective based in Bauhaus and other avant-garde approaches of the early twentieth century.

Since 2022, Mikame has worked on a series entitled Compositions of Disintegration, a body of work inspired by her experience of an earthquake in her studio which made her aware of the gap between the image depicted on the canvas and the actual space of the real world. This work, which maintains a balance with cubist perspectives, seeks to express a sense of gravity—whether falling downwards or floating upwards—centered on the formal relationship between shape and color. In this way, the work succinctly describes Mikame’s approach in this show of extracting and reconstructing phenomenological elements without relying on specific motifs. One example of this experiment in perceiving gravity through color and composition can be seen in inverse and equilibrium (2025) and the way in which the canvas is divided into nine rectangular sections described with a simple brushstroke. Mikame also repeatedly addresses subject matter such as line or light in her work through Building the Image of Lines (since 2019) and Distance of the Light (since 2017). The consideration of invisible lines that appear in the landscape, or an interest in depth perception and a structural analysis of colors that change depending on the light, remain major thematic concerns in Mikame’s painting practice. According to the artist, the new expressive approach to abstraction for the work in this show prompted unprecedented changes in her use of colors and brushes. The observation of everyday events and palm-sized experimental structures forms the base of a highly phenomenological painting practice. Here, Mikame attempts to transform and sublimate the phenomenological interpretations and reconstructions unfolding across the surfaces of her canvases into a purer visual language through the formal medium of abstraction.

What happens when a three-dimensional world becomes a two-dimensional one? Mikame has carried this question with her since the early days of her artistic career, one that has come to fruition in this sharply refined body of new work that incorporates a perspective of translating between dimensions. At the same time, this show can also be seen as the artist’s attempt to answer the historically significant question of what abstract painting is. Continuing to engage with painting against the backdrop of the rapid development of technology in contemporary society has also brought about significant physical changes in her expressive approach, including in the movement of the brush and the strength of the strokes. The results of these efforts to explore new visual possibilities are on full display at this show. We invite you to experience for yourself the trajectory of Mikame’s ideas as she enters into new territory, and witness this crystallization of her painting practice.