Embrace of Reverie

This work represents the singular art world of MAIKA KOBAYASHI. Using only blue, the painting captures two embracing figures against a black background, exploring the blurred boundary between dream and reality. The girl's tight embrace of the other with her eyes closed represents a deep emotional connection and the security she seeks, while the blue bubbles on the other's face emphasize the fragility and uncertainty of the relationship. KOBAYASHI employs the technique of expressing on canvas the vivid images and emotions felt through dreams. In this work, the afterimage of the dream is rendered as a blistering blister and captured as ink splashes. It is a visualization of the fleeting nature of the emotions that dreams bring and the way they burst and disappear in memory. This technique, in which the brush is thrown across the canvas, gives the work a sense of urgency and rawness. The dream poem that inspired the painting further deepens the emotional depth behind the painting. Beginning with a chance encounter at an amusement park, the artist delicately portrays intimacy and subsequent loss through strong emotional expression. The unidentifiable presence of an acquaintance symbolizes the fragmented and ambiguous memories people have of someone. The paintings are deeply connected to a common theme in KOBAYASHI's work: freedom from stereotypes. Based on the unrealistic experience of dreams, KOBAYASHI explores emotions and relationships that cannot be captured in the real world, presenting new possibilities of perception through visual art. Like his previous works, which fuse traditional images of oiran (courtesans) with contemporary cosmology, this work attempts to bridge the past and present, dream and reality.