Welcome to LOVR Atelier. In this bi-monthly series, we take the time to slow down – appreciate the beauty that surrounds us. The artists and creators we profile have blazed a trail for themselves – rendered themselves as titans whose legacies will endure long after we’re all gone.

To celebrate the series’ inaugural piece, we’re taking a closer look at a contemporary Japanese artist with a vice-grip on our hearts: Chiharu Shiota.

Born in Osaka in 1972, Shiota was raised in a historically and culturally rich environment, which significantly influenced her desire to create. As a child, she experimented with traditional Japanese arts such as calligraphy and ikebana (flower arranging). Upon graduating from high school, Shiota opted for formal training at the Kyoto Seika University, where she specialised in painting which, to her surprise, she found limiting and unenjoyable. Through her desire to transcend the boundaries of the canvas, Shiota began experimenting with sculptural and installation-based mediums, which heralded the birth of her signature style.

Shiota's work is characterised by her use of thread, often black or red, to create complex, web-like structures, with which she suspends ordinary objects (that have become her signature motifs) in space and time. Dresses have been a central motif throughout the development of Chiharu Shiota’s artistic practice. A striking example of this is her 2018 installation piece, Reflection on Space and Time, which features two wedding gowns. Their spectral silhouettes levitate inside a mirrored box, nightmarishly enshrouded with thick, black threads. While speaking to her use of the motif, Shiota stated that dresses function as intermediaries between the inside and outside of one’s body, and the self and other.

Throughout her career, Shiota has developed an impressive body of work, punctuated by her deep, philosophical inclinations. Through her generous vulnerability, she has become widely renowned for creating evocative spaces for contemplation and introspection, often imploring viewers to delve into the depths of their own memories and emotions. To date, her work has graced prestigious venues such as the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington D. C., and the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane.

Through her intricate installations, Chiharu Shiota transcends sociocultural barriers, amplifying the universal themes that connect us as human beings – love, loss, mourning, and memory. Her body of work is a triumph, one that will endure across time and space.

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