Karen Knorr & Kimiko Yoshida – Avatars: The Boundaries Between Illusion & Reality  

February 23–March 20, 2019
Holden Luntz Gallery
332 Worth Avenue
Palm Beach, FL 33480
USA

This duo exhibition sees Karen Knorr exhibit for the first time in the USA her large Byobou screens made in Japan from her series Monogatari, a series she has worked on since 2012. In 2017 Knorr was invited into Obai-in temple in Kyoto by artist, calligrapher and head priest Tagen Kobayashi.

Knorr first exhibited her work as free-standing Byobu screens, in a solo exhibition at the Daitoku-ji complex in Obai-in temple in 2018. These screens were made of cedar wood, mulberry, rice paper and silk, and combined with photographs printed on rice paper. The screens were made by local artisan Heiando, in collaboration with Karen Knorr. The photographs are transformed into one-off unique handmade objects with the aid of Japanese master craft techniques. This exhibition at Holden Luntz Gallery in Palm Beach brings together two of these Byobu screens as well as a number of framed photographic prints.

Kimiko Yoshida was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1963. Feeling oppressed as a woman, she left Japan in 1995 and moved to France to pursue her artistic ambitions. Yoshida studied at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles and the Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Le Fresnoy. Her work revolves around feminine identity and the transformative power of art.