![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of a Forest Alcove](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/c2bbcf5582e16700f77adfc7883b6cc1dbb2423e-1050x1400.jpg?w=800)
Bortolami Gallery is pleased to present Watercolors, Mika Horibuchi’s first New York solo exhibition. The paintings contain no actual watercolor media, but a combination of oil painting techniques used to recreate images from photos of her grandmother’s watercolor paintings.
As a nod to traditional photo mounting techniques, Horibuchi has applied and sanded many layers of gesso to create a subtle relief in the form of a rectangle with four triangular corners. This ultra-smooth painting surface is “framed” by the raw, stretched linen of her support, as if each image is suspended on the page of a family photo album.
This alludes to what Horibuchi calls a “spiral of mimesis,” using oils to replicate both the flatness of a photograph and the dispersed pigmentation of watercolor paints. Her color pools in a single, uniform layer atop the gessoed surface, translating her grandmother’s brushstrokes in scales which vary from small, postcard sized paintings to massive works several times larger than their source materials.
Works
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of a Forest Alcove](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/c2bbcf5582e16700f77adfc7883b6cc1dbb2423e-1050x1400.jpg?w=800)
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of Pi-ko](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/93c767b10ab5f4ee0d808d50666b07227bfbc6ea-1600x1200.jpg?w=800)
Watercolor of Pi-ko, 2021
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of a House on a Hill](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/dec7cd0002e600e7008aa92f94e2c61fe7d2eef2-1050x1400.jpg?w=800)
Watercolor of a House on a Hill, 2021
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of Cherry Blossom Trees Along a River](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/10b8ccfa33df50083ff8f4325f12857e650c9502-1050x1400.jpg?w=800)
Watercolor of Cherry Blossom Trees Along a River, 2021
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Pencil Sketch for “Watercolor of Pi-ko”](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/df4e68200606b425b0ca57735ccbcb03ce6e9f8b-1600x1200.jpg?w=800)
Pencil Sketch for “Watercolor of Pi-ko”, 2022
![Installation view of displayed artwork titled Watercolor of a Carnation and Velvet Flower Stem](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/mnub8q5m/production/992609b2a39a8fa27d8725791ae3b8dfb99bb9e3-1600x1200.jpg?w=800)