INFO
| Name | Motoko Kikkawa (she/her) |
| Also known as | 吉川基子 |
| Born | 1968 |
| Country of Birth | Japan |
| Place of Residence | Ōtepoti Dunedin |
| Ethnicities | Japanese |
| Artform | Visual arts, Music |
| Decades Active | 2000s, 2010s, 2020s |
ABOUT
Motoko Kikkawa 吉川基子 is a Japanese artist and musician based in Ōtepoti Dunedin, who has been a vital part of the overlapping sound and visual arts communities there for the last decade. Her visual and sonic practices encompass a range of media including paintings, drawings, improvisatory and collaborative performances on violin and vocals, and sculptural, video and photographic works.
Motoko is perhaps equally well-known for her intuitive mastery of the violin as she is for her energetically elaborate watercolour and ink drawings in which the fusing of figuration and abstraction create an unfathomable yet enduring logic. Superfine details and delicacy belie the boundless and psychedelically rhythmic expression that characterises her work. Motoko describes her improvisatory process:
Just like brush is dancing on the paper, I let my hand move. Then add strokes with small brush or pen. It’s very thrilling action because as soon as I add the out lines the brush mark starts have life.
Between 2009 and 2011, whilst studying at Dunedin School of Art, Motoko lived and worked from the artist-run space and collective None Gallery, establishing herself as part of an energetic experimental arts and music community, where shared experiences of sound were perhaps the main form of communication. As she explains, Motoko overcomes the fatigue of a foreign language through her art and music: “When I am making objects, I recall past conversations. When I play music, I play as if I am having a new conversation with the person I am performing with.”
The different strands of her artistic practice intertwine, with live performance, usually on violin and with collaborators, frequently becoming a counterpart to her visual work. The organic, elemental quality of her drawings can also be seen in her sculptural work in which she makes use of materials such as kelp and clay. While improvisation and intuitive processes are central to her practice, her sedulous drawing style requires hours of concentrated work.
Motoko was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1968, and studied philosophy at Nihon University, in Tokyo in 1984. Before moving to Aotearoa, she was involved with the avant-garde theatre company Tokyo Gran Guignol, and was beginning to establish herself as a photographer. After travelling across Aotearoa, she settled in Ōtepoti in 2004. She has been nominated for the Parkin Drawing Prize four times.
LINKS
Key works / presentations
2024 – Music performance accompanying screening of Singing to the Basalt: the film, dual channel projection by Iain Frengley, The Anteroom, Ōtepoti
2023 – Music performance as part of ‘A Dream is like a Magic Cloak’ at Lines of Flight festival, Ōtepoti
2023 – Unformed Experience, New Lands. artist run gallery and project space, Ōtepoti
2023 — suite 2023, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Ōtepoti
2023 — Whakarongo Whakaraupō, Stoddart Cottage, Festival of Sound, Ōtautahi
2022 — Presentation Layer: NFT forms, platforms and transference, Ilam Campus Gallery, Ōtautahi
2021 — Engine In Nature, Fringe Festival, Ōtepoti
2020 — Reflections of a Mind Absorbed with Play, Audio Foundation, Tāmaki Makaurau
2018 — Asian Aotearoa Arts Hui, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Pōneke
2018 — Nowhere Festival, Audio Foundation, Tāmaki Makaurau
2017 — Short Sighted Girl’s Very Thick Wall, Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Ōtepoti
Key awards
2024 — 85 Glasgow Street Art Centre artist residency, Whanganui
2023 — Parkin Drawing Prize: Merit award
