In the heart of Mayfair until 16 July, Maddox Gallery is presenting Yuki Aruga’s debut exhibition, Without End. The works on display are an excellent introduction to the artist, whose artworks of flowers explore various themes such as mixed-race heritage, the sublime and vanitas.

Though Aruga is renowned for being a painter, she adapts her practice if the artistic concept requires it, becoming a sculptor, taxidermist and filmmaker. She has also become skilled in traditional artistic techniques used by Old Masters such as verre églomisé, gilding, japanning and faux marbling – some of which can be seen in her current exhibition. When discussing Aruga’s diverse artistic practice, Maeve Doyle, artistic director of Maddox Gallery said, ‘Her sense of craft and technical ability is very rare’.

Aruga studied fine art at Wimbledon School of Art and Camberwell College of Arts, graduating with a first-class honours degree in 2008. In 2021, the artist was awarded an MA with distinction from the City & Guilds of London Art School. After completing her Masters, she was invited to carry out the Painter-Stainers’ Decorative Surfaces Fellowship. Upon finishing the fellowship, she became an honorary Freeman of the Painter-Stainers’ Company. Aruga has also been an assistant to several artists including one of today’s leading portrait artists, Ralph Heimans.

Without End centres around a series of eight tondos – circular works of art – and a diptych. When asked why her main subject matter is flowers, Aruga replied, ‘I have always been drawn to them and interested in their fine details’. This focus on detail, texture and colour produces a sense of stillness in her works, such as a bee collecting pollen from a rose as the flower itself is on the cusp of losing its petals – making them slow and meditative to observe. Aruga is a practising Buddhist and her art subtly draws on Buddhist teachings, such as the circular nature of life, showing flowers in various stages of their life cycles.

Growing up in Essex with British-Japanese heritage, Aruga felt isolated and used art as a form of escapism. In her more recent works Aruga’s mixed-raced heritage is consciously intertwined within her practice and aesthetic. Materially, the works draw upon Western tradition, while conceptually they are derived from Japanese aesthetic principles. Her subject matter often appears to float in a dark void: this negative space is known as ma in Japanese, which is the space between presence and absence and is related to the feeling of displacement.

Aruga views the canvas as a window into another realm, a third space. She was inspired by the concept of the third space as posited by post-colonial theorist Homi Bhabha, who defines it as a space where two cultures collide and intersect. In this “in-between” space, new cultural identities are created and constantly in a state of becoming. This can be observed in Without End.

The title of the exhibition is inspired by the poem entitled Without End by Ono no Komachi, one of Japan’s greatest female writers, whose poetry dates from 833-857:

Without end

Do I think of you and so

Come to me at night.

For on the path of dreams at least,

There’s no one to disapprove!

The poem is from a female perspective about a pathway into a dreamscape that exists only in the mind. This narrative is one that definitely resonated with Aruga and is conceptualised through the expansive spaces, portals and darkness in her compositions that give her paintings a surreal and sublime edge.

‘Journeying through the artist’s mind, her works give voice to subjects that occupy Yuki’s thoughts, but which can be difficult to vocalise, revealing their beauty layer by layer,’ says Maeve Doyle.

Check out Without End and behold the ephemeral nature of beauty through her delicate yet striking depictions of flowers.

This exhibition runs until 16 July at Maddox Gallery, 9 Maddox St, London W1S 2QE maddoxgallery.com/exhibitions/144-yuki-aruga-without-end-8-june-15-july-2023/