Memento Mori
Remember your mortality.
Personal requiem and inevitable celebration for the circle of Life
March 11, 2011, when Japan experienced the strongest earthquake and tsunami in its recorded history, and following the nuclear disaster, Yuri Shimojo was in New York City, far from her ancestral homeland.
By the time I was 29, I had lost my entire family. Seeing such astonishing numbers of people have washed away, my personal history of loss came back with deep emotion. Not long after, I heard reports of Sakura (Japanese cherry trees) blossoming amid the debris in Tōhoku, the epicenter.
The news of the strength of nature, that rebirth itself, saved me. I was inspired to start painting Sakura petals one by one in an attempt to process my pain. The repetitive motion was necessary for my healing process, which became a form of ritual akin to Buddhist monks counting each prayer bead. By the time I stopped counting the number of petals I had painted, I started to see each petal as a life. I felt like I was communicating with each one, and I needed to mourn them.
I used my mother's ink, which I found in her calligraphy box. I ground it onto the inkstone with water to make my ink with her. Gently wrapped around each petal, as if hugging with the pale Sumi ink, not black, as warm tears.
Sakura led to the completion of four more paintings. All were created using a mandala-like sphere, with different intentions and themes painted with Japanese ink on handmade Indian Khadi paper.
Each work from Memento Mori follows the form of a circle of Life.
"Sakura 桜" implies Nirvana
"Algae 藻" implies River in Between
"Vine 蔦" implies Passage
"Hana (flower) 花" implies Birth
"Universal Stain しみの宇宙" implies Self
Sakura 桜
2013, 38” x 52” ( 96 x 132 cm),
Ganasi Japanese watercolor, sumi ink, and graphite on Indian handmade paper
Algae 藻
2013, 38” x 52” ( 96 x 132 cm),
Ganasi Japanese watercolor, sumi ink, and graphite on Indian handmade paper
Vine 蔦
2013, 38” x 52” ( 96 x 132 cm),
Ganasi Japanese watercolor, sumi ink, and graphite on Indian handmade paper
Hana 花
2013, 38” x 52” ( 96 x 132 cm),
Ganasi Japanese watercolor, sumi ink, and graphite on Indian handmade paper
Universal Stain 宇宙のしみ
2013, 38” x 52” ( 96 x 132 cm),
Ganasi Japanese watercolor, sumi ink, and graphite on Indian handmade paper
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
Honenin Temple, Kyoto 京都 法然院 March 11, 2013 -
One of the oldest surviving architecture in Tokyo, Gallery éf 浅草 March 11, 2014 -
One of the oldest surviving architecture in Tokyo, Gallery éf 浅草 March 11, 2014 -
One of the oldest surviving architecture in Tokyo, Gallery éf 浅草 March 11, 2014 -
One of the oldest surviving architecture in Tokyo, Gallery éf 浅草 March 11, 2014 -
One of the oldest surviving architecture in Tokyo, Gallery éf 浅草 March 11, 2014 -
Since 2013, the Memento Mori paintings, having traveled the globe over the course of years, signify the artist’s own spiritual journey. Shimojo focuses on celebrating life’s precious, fleeting moments. She asks the viewer to pay attention to what nature is trying to show us. Most of all, she views this body of work as a universal embrace of gratitude and fear for life and death. Memento Mori is a body of work, ten years in the making, and for decades more into the future, the universality of its intentions will continue to blossom, helping us to recognize and embrace our place in the spiritual world.
Memento Mori 2021
PREMIERES IN THE U.S. ON ITS TEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY
at Praise Shadows Art Gallery, Boston
Memento Mori in 2011 represented the formidable power of nature,
reminding humans of our tiny presence in the universe.
That power is also healing and resilient to bring our individuality into focus
during a year of unimaginable loss at the hands of the global pandemic.
Previously shown only in Kyoto (2013) and Tokyo (2014), both opened on March 11, the day of the earthquake, The U.S. premiere of Memento Mori also opened on March 11, 2021, the tenth anniversary “coincidentally.” In addition to the paintings, a new mixed-media installation is dedicated to the lives lost in the natural and nuclear disaster of Tohoku and the millions of people who have lost their lives to COVID-19. Memento Mori's universality of intentions will continue to blossom, helping us recognize and embrace our place in the spiritual world.
Petal Mori
The site-specific mixed-media installation
Petal Mori, 2021
Collaboration with Maria Takeuchi (projection) and Alec Fellman (sound)
On the floor in the center of the gallery will be a mound of white cleansing salt with 108 glass Petri dishes set upon it. “108” is a sacred number in the Dharmic religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism; in Japan, at the end of each year, Buddhist temples chime their bells 108 times to close out the old year and welcome the new one. Each petri dish encloses an individual Sakura petal made of torn washi paper, then tied closed, as if in tribute, with fine silk thread. Another Sakura petal, suspended from the ceiling by a single silk white thread, hovers just above the salt mound, all graced in luminous projection. The accompanying sound, Petal Mori, a 108-minute looping soundscape, contains a bell ringing once per minute, simultaneously illuminating one of the 108 Petri dishes.
Press
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YURI SHIMOJO REMEMBERS THE NATURAL DISASTER OF TOHOKU
CORALIE KRAFT, THE NEW YORK TIMES STYLE MAGAZINE, MARCH 11, 2021
On Thursday, the Japanese artist Yuri Shimojo’s affecting show “Memento Mori” makes its U.S. debut at Praise Shadows Art Gallery, a new space in Brookline, Mass., that aims to exhibit emerging and midcareer artists, as well as mentor young artistic talent in the Boston area. For Shimojo, who splits her time between New York and Kyoto, Japan, and the gallery’s owner, Yng-Ru Chen — who cut her teeth at MoMA PS 1, the Asia Society and Sotheby’s — March 11 is heavy with meaning: It marks the 10th anniversary of Japan’s deadly Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which together claimed nearly 16,000 lives, and which inspired this body of work...
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AT PRAISE SHADOWS, YURI SHIMOJO PAINTINGS GIVE SHAPE TO LIVES LIVED AND LOST
CATE MCQUAID, THE BOSTON GLOBE, MARCH 31, 2021
It’s impossible to comprehend the sheer numbers lost to COVID-19. Japanese painter Yuri Shimojo’s series “Memento Mori,” which meditates on losing individuals and multitudes, helps. Shimojo made these paintings after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which killed close to 16,000 people, and this is the first time they’ve been shown in the United States. She was already intimate with loss; everyone in her immediate family died before she was 30. Now she was overcome with the magnitude of it. A month after the disaster, the New York-based artist learned that cherry blossoms had bloomed in Fukushima. She began to paint single petals as a means of coping. Eventually, those accumulated into a large mandala painting, “Sakura,” the first in this series...
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A Conversation on Art & Healing
Listen to a conversation with the artist Yuri Shimojo, whose series, "Memento Mori," which is dedicated to the people who died during the earthquake, tsunami, and resulting Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, will have its United States premiere at Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Brookline, Mass. On the 10th anniversary of the disaster, Ms. Shimojo will speak with Yng-Ru Chen, the founder of the gallery, and Gennifer Weisenfeld, a professor of art, art history and visual studies at Duke University, about resilience in times of crisis, including during the coronavirus pandemic. This event, which is presented by the Duke University Alumni Association…
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ESCAPE THE HOUSE WITH THESE 15 SPRING ART EXHIBITIONS
PAMELA REYNOLDS, WBUR, MARCH 29, 2021
After an earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan in March 2011, artist Yuri Shimojo needed some way to process the pain of losing more than 16,000 compatriots in the disaster. Living in New York, far from her native Tokyo, Shimojo began painting Sakura petals, the delicate Japanese cherry tree blossoms that somehow continued to bloom amid the debris in Tōhoku, the region at the earthquake’s epicenter. For Shimojo, the repetitive act of painting petals was a form of ritual that she likens to the motions of Buddhist monks counting prayer beads.
