October 24 – November 30, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 24, 2024, 6-8PM

Euphotic is Naho Taruishi’s second solo show at Planthouse. It features her recent paintings, drawings, and sculptures.

Taruishi has been interested in things that remain from the past and putting them in the context of visual forms. Her references include archeological findings, mechanical inventions for world exploration, and how historical events are documented.

This exhibition, Euphotic, includes works contouring the moments that are barely visible and situations that are often hidden. The image of a shark in the euphotic zone, an uppermost layer of seawater that receives sunlight, gives us the impression of encountering something unrevealed. Subtly, it reminds our mind that seeks to see.

For the last six years, the artist has been experimenting with glass, which is fragile but can be formed again or differently. The sculpture Megalodon Tooth remarks the extinct species from 2.6 million years ago, having a body length estimated at 67 feet.

Images of ancient paper also have been the artist’s primal motif to draw. In Papyrus (wind), the ghost-like wind blows out of the image border. Papyrus (overexposed) is an image layered with an overexposure-like effect, making the drawn details hard to see.

Together, Euphotic retrieves the elements that are gone but simultaneously evolves into the sense of uncertainty of time.

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Naho Taruishi lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been shown both locally and abroad including at Planthouse Gallery, The Drawing Center, episode gallery in New York, NY as well as shows at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, TX, and RK Projects, RI among others. Her publication by Vincent FitzGerald & Co. is held in various institutional collections including the Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Harvard University and Lyrik Kabinett, in Munich, Germany. Taruishi has been awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She also has received fellowships from The Drawing Center, the MacDowell Colony, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Naho Taruishi, Impression (detail), 2024, oil on linen, 45 x 30 inches.