Art Toronto 2025 | Booth c73

Barbara Ishikura

October 23 - 26

KALINER is pleased to present a solo show by Barbara Ishikura at Art Toronto 2025 at Booth C73.

In her large vibrant painting Ishikura examines the intersection of high and low culture through the juxtaposition of everyday vices and personal agency. There is a duality between indulgence and excess, reflecting how lowbrow elements—substances, voyeurism, Dunkin Donuts—are often reinterpreted or elevated in contemporary culture. The refinement of the damask wallpaper, Staffordshire dog, and dress-up in Ishikura’s characters challenge the boundaries between refined and base, examining how societal pressures and personal coping mechanisms shape female agency and identity. By reinterpreting the ordinary and often kitsch elements of life through the lens of sophistication, Ishikura aims to question and challenge the cultural hierarchies surrounding taste, class, and aesthetic preference.

The title of the painting Birdbath explores the tension between kitsch and luxury, embodied by the image of a birdbath. Typically found in suburban settings surrounded by inexpensive lawn furniture, ornate birdbaths can verge on the gaudy, with excessive decoration often seen as symbols of bad taste. In contrast, marble or antique birdbaths in wealthier settings represent exclusivity and refinement, symbolizing leisure and indulgence. This juxtaposition reveals how everyday, often overlooked objects, can embody both mundanity and luxury, depending on context. Through her work, Ishikura examines the blurred boundaries, particularly in relation to female identity, creating a dialogue between the everyday and the refined, the vulgar and the sophisticated, and ultimately how societal tastes shape our sense of self.

Believing that figurative work has the ability to express identity by depicting the humor and pathos of the human condition, Barbara Ishikura uses portraiture to explore the ongoing conflict of adhering to social norms across different social classes. Ishikura is interested in looking at the female body and how it navigates social spaces and the increasingly blurred boundaries between class and culture in contemporary society. The women in her artwork often have droopy breasts, dangling cigarettes, sunburned arms, and display their unabashed sexuality while striking classical art historical poses. These women are drinking cheap beer in cans and smoking cigarettes while surrounded by working-class paraphernalia. At the same time, they inhabit beautiful interiors with lush plants, velvet drapery, books, and fancy dogs suggesting a sophisticated lifestyle. Ishikura is interested in her position as a contemporary female artist and what it means to be a woman painting another woman, thereby taking back ownership of the female nude which was historically painted by male artists. In her recent body of work, the artist is exploring notions of good and bad taste within social class. Raised in a large family in a working-class neighborhood outside of Boston, Ishikura is a first-generation college graduate.

Ishikura, Wreaking Havoc, 2025, Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 48 in

You don’t need to look outside yourself, everything you need is already right under your nose.

Barbara Ishikura

Her adult life has been a hybrid of an unrefined upbringing and the privileged multi- cultural spaces that she occupies today. Navigating these two contrasting worlds, Ishikura is interested in the “choice” to like something of bad taste when it is against one’s better judgement. In her paintings, the artist juxtaposes objects from high and low culture in an attempt to illuminate the cultural hierarchies we create.