Liz Sloan: Signature Ginza
Signature Ginza 2024
Liz Sloan
Sometimes I feel like the relentless progress of progress is threatening to smother my distinct, personal self. And I know I’m not alone. When life is being radically changed by technology, at some point, you need to dig in your heels and figure out where you stand. I have always valued the Japanese esthetic. I admire simple expression, being able to say a lot with very little and to create vital energy by opposing harmony and tension. This was the impetus behind Signature Ginza 2024, my current solo exhibit at the Ippodo Gallery in Tokyo, Japan.
In this series I created works on paper that are composed of non-color, black and white ovals suggesting the Universal through which cuts the Individual in the form of an ink- blue, and sometimes a Crimson line.
Why call it “Signature”?
Because I want to capture the distinctive pattern, product or characteristics by which someone or something can be distinguished. The personality I weave through the painted stroke throughout this series has always been in my work since I began oil painting at the age of 7. I love the expression of a fluid, cleanly painted line. Notably, I include these distinctive strokes and carefully display them just as they would be in signatory real life -- from left to right. It is my subtle but distinctive way of not just preserving the importance of identity -- but my identity.
Along with the three natural identity traits – the fingerprint, the iris and DNA – only the signature is acquired or learned. Sadly, due to the universal march of technology, this individualistic human identifier is being used less and less.
Signature Ginza 2024 is a call to action to honor our histories and traditions, and to honor the vital importance of our personal signatures.
From New York to Ginza
In March 2020, when New York City was just beginning to suffer the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic, I received an email informing me about Liz's solo exhibition.
At a time when the world was beginning to fear this new virus, Liz's collages, in indigo and white, provided a welcome relief. I felt that they shared something in common with Japanese ink drawings created in a single stroke and immediately contacted my daughter in New York asking her to go to Liz's exhibition and purchase three of her works.
The world is overflows with clamorous artists.
Ippodo is the only gallery specializing in Japanese arts and crafts in existence, but the colors, shapes, and spatial composition of Liz's work were so captivating that I wanted to try an exhibition of it at Ginza Ippodo.
A year ago, Liz visited Ginza with her husband and it was decided.
The title is Signature Ginza.
She is a great admirer of the Japanese aesthetic. Simple, tense lines, like a name written using a signature brush...this kind of work has come from New York.
