Year: 2021
Medium: water-soluble wax pastel, ink, thread on paper
Dimensions: 20 x 25 cm (7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in.)
Acquired from KENJI TAKI GALLERY, 2022
The “Quarantine in Shanghai” series is the product of Shiota’s efforts to overcome the stress of spending the quarantine period in a hotel in Shanghai, due to China’s COVID-19 quarantine policies, while visiting for her exhibition. With China’s strict “zero COVID” policy at the time, how did the lives of people in Shanghai appear to Shiota, and what did this experience bring to herself? Shiota is an artist whose works focus on the themes of life and death, propositions that are fundamental to all living beings. The COVID-19 pandemic can be described as a battle for survival, a battle rarely seen in human history. People fought the invisible threat of the virus with their intelligence, exhausting themselves emotionally and physically. The thread, which has become a symbol of Shiota’s work and is also incorporated in this piece, represents something as invisible as a virus but is nevertheless the opposite of the nature of threat. It is the emotional connections between people, the lifeblood of humanity, straddling the border between life and death. In this work, black thread runs out from one red house. The house is depicted as closed, with no windows or doors, and the end of the thread remains unknown. Despite the setting filled with densely packed houses, the work exudes a deep sense of isolation—a powerful reflection of how Shiota must have felt during her quarantine.
