Rieko Hotta is born 1977 in Tokyo, Japan, currently lives and works in Berlin, DE. In 2001 she graduated from Nihon University College of Art, Department of Fine Arts in Tokyo
Rieko Hotta works in a serial practice of paintings and objects that evoke tactile images based on the concept of embodied abstraction with physicality, committed to process an abstract thinking into physical imagery using limited materials and colors.
Language somehow becomes obsolete in the face of her works. Without a specific focus she uses tactile images, random factors and organic elements as materials for expression during the production process.
Her works are never figurative though their abstraction derives from concrete shapes. Using a small brush repetitively over the canvas, rotating, stroking and dabbing the paint is caked on, spread thinly or sprinkled in monochrome dots over the canvas. It is the ultimate test of patience to repeat the same movement when creating the works. But her hand never works the same way twice. In contrast, Hotta’s works gives the eye an opening – we can spot minor variations, and repeatedly we can scan the works to find new vanishing points in them. Only these really are vanishing points – time and again, we realize that Hotta’s paintings have one objective, and that is to escape our attempts at imposing orderly interpretations on them. Combining these paintings as well as installations and objects that are related to the paintings, Hotta creates a space that evokes sensations and memories.