Suchness" by Daichi Takagi at David Zwirner

Trees, stones, rain, and the moon repeat as motifs in this new exhibition by Japanese artist Daichi Takagi at David Zwirner, displayed in The Upper Room, in the gallery's London space. Blurring the lines between figuration and abstraction, Takagi's recent painting is introspective and contemplative, focused on phenomena observable in his daily life – less as a record of the natural world than as a reflection on the fleeting nature of perception itself. The exhibition title, "Suchness" (真如), refers to a state in which things simply are what they are: instead of interpreting or controlling his subjects, the artist seeks to give form to their presence, to the space that emerges around them, and to the essence of the experience, in a practice that, according to him, begins with the simple act of seeing and perceiving objects as pure experience. This approach dialogues with the notion of "pure experience" by the modern Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida and with Eastern ideas of non-duality, in which the boundaries between the self and the world are understood as fluid, not fixed.