“Time for a snack Vol.2”

Ryoko Kido has steadily continued to produce paintings ever since her graduation from a university of the arts. Until just a few years ago, she was compelled to balance her artistic activities with her duties as a mother for much of the time. As a result (which may be an excessively superficial way of putting it), the paintings in the two solo exhibitions she held in 2009 (The Gaze of Spring) and 2012 (Rain After Smile) seemed to ooze softness, magnanimity, and warmth that mesh with associations of the word "mother."
The picture changed greatly with #time for a snack, her last solo exhibition held in 2018. In spite of the casual, pleasing connotations of the word "snack," the sweet delights portrayed on the canvas radiated a staunch self-assertion. Instilled with a massiveness by the classical technique of tempera, the confections projected a strong presence, as if they were triumphantly thrusting a fist in the air before the faces of the viewers and demanding their recognition. Kido painted a warm and gentle world proceeding from her days of interaction with her children, and perhaps the figurative fist belongs to her, now that her child-raising days are over and she has finally gotten herself in a position allowing her to face her own ego 100 percent. When her transition is viewed in this light, one can see that this exhibition of works again made in tempera and on the same theme is a further exploration of her own self. Hovering pieces of Apollo Chocolate, slices of apple cutting through the air, chunks of caramel squeezing out of aluminum-foil wrappers... The treats rendered by Kido in meticulous detail positively wallop viewers who are unprepared for them. Her mountain of rice seems to eclipse this world. Those who come to the exhibition are advised not to be fooled by the title Time for a Snack, which is ordinarily an invitation to a relaxing break, and to get themselves ready for a confrontation with Kido's ego.
- Yoko Shiotani (Artistic Director, Japan Society)

Image: "Time for a snack 2022"