Roots & Routes: an online exhibition

Taking up the online space of Nicosia-based Riana Raouna Gallery is a new solo exhibition by Mia Takemoto. Titled Roots & Routes, the exhibition is now open and live through the gallery’s Online Viewing Room and is comprised of ten paintings. On until July 31, the exhibition foregrounds the artist’s exploration of transnationalism and the formation of identity.

As a British Japanese artist, born in Australia and currently living in Scotland, Mia Takemoto explores the notion of identity as being dynamic, and formed by the individual’s movement and multiple displacements rather than being focused on the binary idea of ‘homeland’ and ‘new land’.

The series of paintings Hybrid Landscapes features figures amidst imagined landscapes composed of inky mountains and decorative surfaces. In her latest series of works, Roots and Routes, Takemoto utilises different types of wood associated with the countries she has moved through, namely Scotland, Japan and Australia. Each veneer belongs to a different tree that she associates with her own routes; cherry with her hometown Warrington, oak with Scotland, fir with British Columbia, maple with Japan, and eucalyptus with Australia.

Like in all of Takemoto’s works, these paintings are created with materials the artist prepares herself, such as egg tempera, ink and handmade paper drawing attention to ancient Asian techniques where materiality is as important as the finished work of art.

Roots & Routes

Online solo exhibition by Mia Takemoto. June 14-July 31. Online at www.rianaraouna.com/viewing-room