Threading her way through life

When Japanese artist Shiota Chiharu presented her first retrospective exhibition The Soul Trembles at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2019, eager enthusiasts formed long lines on the street as they waited patiently to get in.

Wang Wei, director of the Long Museum in Shanghai, was visiting the Japanese museum at that time and was intrigued by Shiota's art, and impressed with her expression of intangible things: memories, anxiety, dreams and more. Wang then asked the director of the Mori Art Museum to help bring the exhibition to China. Two years later, the exhibition opened at the Long Museum West Bund on Dec 19, featuring more than 80 artworks by the 49-year-old artist.

"This is the first large-scale showcase on the Chinese mainland of Shiota that covers all the important stages of her creative practice since 1996," Wang told local media before the opening.

Shiota was born in Osaka in 1972 and is currently based in Berlin. She decided to become a painter at the age of 12, though during her art studies in Australia she stopped painting and turned to performance and installation art.

In 2008, she received the Art Encouragement Prize for new artists from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In 2015, she was selected to represent Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale.