Ian Kiaer
Omachi Project (Fragment VI), 2024

The works, or “fragments” from the Omachi Project’s series share the same title as a concurrent project that Kiaer has installed for the “Northern Alps Art Festival 2024” in Omachi, Japan. In a sheltered forest next to the national treasure of Nishina Jinmeigu, Kiaer has developed an enormous piece that evokes suibokuga. 18m high paintings are hung between trees, where viewers walk and experience ever-changing views. The suiboka method of the 16th century, employed by the painter Soami, merges monochrome ink and paper with the particular stillness of the forest, changing light, and the view of the Northern Alps, blurring the border between painting and nature. As such, the works from the Omachi Project’s series can be understood as preliminary fragments for the project—traces, marks and stains on paper that develop into tentative proposals. Movement, fragility, and lightness are not only the basic ingredients of Kiaer’s work, but also form its central theory.

Text adapted from the introduction to Ian Kiaer’s exhibition Ian Kiaer: Soami project, monochrome, held at On Sundays & Lightseed Gallery, Tokyo, from 18 September to 20 October, 2024.