Manet to Gauguin (2024)

Artist: Yuki Kihara
Title of Artwork: Manet to Gauguin (after Manet and Gauguin) 
Year of Production: 2024
Edition: 20
Artist proof: 2
Medium: Pigment print on Hahnemühle FineArt Baryta paper 
Dimension: 1516 x 460 mm
Price: Inquire

My work entitled ‘Manet to Gauguin (after Manet and Gauguin)’ 2024 expands on my research into the representations of gender non-binary people in the Pacific and their relationship to the development of modernism including Impressionism. On the left features an unchanged Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting entitled 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (the luncheon on the grass)' and on the right a cropped version of Paul Gauguin’s, 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?' 1897–98, which was set in Tahiti. In the middle- section, I’ve imposed the Tahitian couple from Gauguin’s painting into Manet’s pastoral scene placed in front of the white couple posing in a similar manner in order to highlight the uncanny resemblance between the two paintings which seem to suggest that Gauguin's major painting may have been inspired by Manet’s painting. Additionally, the work tracks the trajectory from the almost universal representation of white people to the romantic and sexualised depiction imposed on Polynesian people by Gauguin.