Shoji Kato

NaCl (Drives)

This will be Shoji Kato’s second solo exhibition in Pori.

This exhibition features a combination of abstract watercolour paintings and an installation work that occupies the whole gallery space of the upper floor of Poriginal Gallery, Pori, Finland.

The paintings are the result of long-time commitment, during which the artist’s process has evolved – the elements of colour, shapes, spaces and distances turn into a universe of relationships. In such a metaphysical place, the past is unsettled.

NaCl (Drives) is an installation work inspired by the fact that the gallery used to be a salt storage building   (a neo-Renaissance construction designed by F. J. Lindström and built in 1885, located on the south bank of Kokemäki river, connected to the Baltic sea). It is a site-sensitive composition of salt-related materials that proposes the gallery space as an imaginary salt cave or mine, and as a place reserved for encounters. The large gallery windows are covered with crystallised salt that sets a mood and hints at different kinds of membranes that filter light, liquid and even our imaginations. In this work, salt is seen as a multifunctional and magical vehicle and a driving agent, moving around us and inside us, sustaining the habitability of this planet, and both benefitting and threatening life.

Accompanied by a text of short essays, stories and events around salt, this work invites viewers to bring their knowledge and insights, and contemplate how we take part in the entangling relations of salt, the world and life.