Anna Schwartz Gallery has unveiled Chiharu Shiota: State of Being, an exhibition of new works by the acclaimed Japanese artist presented until 30 July 2022. State of Being is being exhibited concurrently with Shiota’s The Soul Trembles – curated by Mami Kataoka, Director of Mori Art Museum, Tokyo – at QAGOMA. A significant moment in Shiota’s twenty-five-year artistic practice, each of these Australian exhibitions are new touch points in Shiota’s devotion to exploring the tangle of memory and dreams and their transcendence into our waking lives.

State of Being is comprised of work in both two and three dimensions, all realised through the artist’s signature language of threads. A a sculptural human figure in red rests beneath yet connected to an immense web that spans the gallery from wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. On a more intimate scale, sculptures and works on canvas and paper offer an opportunity to see details of Shiota’s thinking. Reclaimed love letters, diaries and photographs, found by the artist in flea markets, are artefacts of other lives lived in other places.