Year: 2022
Medium: acrylic on handkerchief
Dimensions: 26 x 27.3 cm (10 1/4 x 10 3/4 in.)
Acquired from Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2022
Kudo's works gently mingle with the boundary between daily life and painting. In this work, she has chosen a handkerchief which was given by her mother as a support when cleaning her brushes. Although Kudo lives with cats and they often appear in her paintings, in this work, the design of lovely black cats on the handkerchief adds a heartwarming touch. However, the figure depicted is facing straight ahead with eyes opened, and the profile looks somewhat stiff. The title is “Virus”. The dotted black cats with other designs printed on the handkerchief seem to be a metaphor for the invisible threat that is waiting to spread and rage against humans. This work was created in 2022, and at the time of its release, the world was still under the ongoing threat from COVID-19, and fighting against it was a critical issue for humans. Many artists expressed their works in their way as a social commentary or as wishes and prayers. Kudo created a few works of handkerchiefs, including this one, which were exhibited in galleries and museums, often hung on ropes as if they were laundry, swaying lightly in the air.
