TOKYO.- MAKI Gallery is presenting Shifting Existence, a solo exhibition by Anne Kagioka Rigoulet. Centered on the continual transformation of dimension, body, relationship, and chromatic presence, the exhibition traces a pivotal shift within the artist’s practice—from materially constructed surfaces toward an increasingly planar mode of painting.
For over a decade, Kagioka has developed a distinctive painterly language grounded in sgraffito, a classical mural technique, combined with fabric collage and layered pigmentation. Through these methods, her works have long occupied a threshold between painting and relief, generating sculptural depth while remaining rooted in the pictorial field. A defining aspect of this exhibition is the gradual departure from such pronounced physical texture toward oil paintings that relinquish overt relief. Indented canvases, flattened compositions, and drawings together articulate a visible transition from three-dimensional presence to two-dimensional articulation—a shift not only of form, but of perception itself.
Although recent works embrace a smoother surface, they retain the memory of earlier material gestures. The movement of cloth, once embedded physically within the structure, now lingers as a visual resonance. Through subtle modulations of color, contour, and luminosity, the paintings evoke a sensation of spatial depth that arises not from actual protrusion, but from optical and sensory engagement. As tangible texture recedes, an alternative dimensionality emerges—one that unfolds within the viewer’s awareness.
The exhibition centers on the Figure series, in which human forms appear as reflections upon water. In addition to solitary figures, the more recent Pair works depict two bodies in contact, responding to one another in states of mutual transformation. Through proximity and exchange, new configurations of movement, flow, and chromatic rhythm take shape. Like mirrored images wavering on the surface of water, boundaries remain fluid, expanding outward in ripples that call into question the stability of existence itself.
With the transition toward planar oil painting, the granular materiality of sand mixed into the pigment is preserved, while the pronounced relief created by fabric collage has gradually disappeared. This development has allowed for a heightened concentration on chromatic relationships. In the present body of work, the tension and harmony produced by the collision, overlap, and resonance of color become central concerns. Strength and softness coexist within carefully calibrated balance, generating a dynamic yet cohesive visual field.
Underlying each composition is a continuous current of motion—dimensions shifting, contours dissolving, hues vibrating, and relationships in flux. Through the ostensibly static medium of painting, Kagioka invites viewers to encounter both the instability and the richness of being, and to sense the traces of energy that persist beneath visible form.
Born in 1987 in Kanagawa, Japan, Anne Kagioka Rigoulet received a BFA in Oil Painting in 2011 followed by an MFA in Mural Painting in 2013 from the Tokyo University of the Arts. Kagioka went on to enroll in Fresco and Mosaic at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d’Art in Paris and continued her studies in Fresco at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. She eventually established her own studio in Kamakura, where she lives and works today. Kagioka’s distinctly textured paintings utilize a unique method that combines fabric collage with sgraffito (“to scratch” in Italian), a classic technique used in mural decor where multiple layers of paint are applied, then scraped away to reveal the colors underneath. The artist’s interest lies in capturing the ephemeral moment when a familiar landscape transforms into an abstract vision, and in 2014, she began her signature Reflection series—sculptural paintings based on studies of water reflections from around the world. This later led to her Figure series, which depicts human figures as their reflections are fragmented by wavering water surfaces. In 2019, Kagioka’s experience at an artist residency program in Luxembourg birthed the Element series, in which she captures the country’s mammoth rock formations gradually carved from millennia of water erosion—by thinly layering acrylic paint on bare canvas. The expressive modes explored in these three bodies of work were further developed in the artist’s Portrait series, which harnesses the fluid energy of water to deconstruct and reassemble individual faces. Kagioka’s paintings, composed of striking yet delicate colors, vacillate between abstract and representational, two dimensional and three-dimensional forms, all the while continuing to fascinate viewers with their keen aesthetic insight and endless evolution.
The artist’s solo exhibitions include Undersurface, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2024); Addition - Subtraction, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2022); Transition, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2021); A Moment of Immersion, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2018); Reflection: 2015-16, MAKI Gallery (Tokyo, 2016); and Anne Kagioka Rigoulet, MAKI Gallery (Paris, 2014). She has also participated in various group shows and mural projects in Japan and Europe, as well as multiple art fairs across the globe. In 2023, Kagioka was included in ABSTRACTION: The Genesis and Evolution of Abstract Painting, a major exhibition at the Artizon Museum in Tokyo, as one of the emerging contemporary artists who pursue new forms of creative expression while carrying on the traditions of abstract painting from the twentieth century. Kagioka's work is also part of the Artizon Museum’s permanent collection.
