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aaploit presents Walking Straight, a solo exhibition by Haruna Maho, on view from August 4 through August 27, 2023. Haruna graduated from Tohoku University of Art and Design's Western Painting course in March 2023 and is currently based in Okayama.

Haruna creates abstract paintings. She says she is painting air. But since air is invisible, it borrows the form of concrete things—and that form is a hole. Her straightforward engagement with painting is such that, in the words of her teacher, "it feels as if I am sitting before an art student from half a century ago."¹

Emptying herself, wielding the brush with an empty mind. No sketches, no preconceptions—she senses the air of the space and her body moves. She receives information from the environment through her body, and within that state of emptiness the brush moves, and a painting comes into being. This, Haruna says, is her ideal work.

This exhibition presents works titled a full scale hole alongside her latest work My Reality. The a full scale hole series ranges from size 30 (910 × 727 mm) to size 120 (1,940 × 1,303 mm).

In the large-scale works, a great blue elliptical ring is visible across the surface. Where the ring in the foreground breaks open, its movement and color evoke the impression of waves. Black lines move vertically across the picture plane, resembling branches—and then the blue ring begins to look like foliage, or perhaps frost on trees. Confronting Haruna's work, in which various forms can be found, one senses something like contact with the collective unconscious. One has the illusion that she is conducting an experiment and showing us the results.

¹ https://www.tuad.ac.jp/g_document/works/2022/4600/

For inquiries regarding the exhibition and works, please contact info@aaploit.com.