Another Day: Claudia Kogachi

Permeated with personal and cultural iconography, Claudia Kogachi's inaugural exhibition at Gow Langsford, Another Day, transports us into a distinct world where experience and fantasy collide. These works show Kogachi’s exploration of a sense of place and belonging—through inherited histories, memory, research, imagination, travel and personal experience. Born in Japan and raised in Aotearoa, with strong family ties to Okinawa Island and Hawai’i, Kogachi invites us to share a personal perspective that is fragmented, layered and constantly being reconstructed.

Kogachi’s iconography is not a static portrayal of culture, but a process of discovery. In this, Kogachi leans into her imagination, painting places of fantasy; dream-like portals where things are recognised but not fully known. Distances are inaccurate and symbols sit alongside one another in unexpected ways. Mt Fuji can be impossibly close. A figure can be submerged and above the water simultaneously. The paintings are not attempting to recreate places exactly as they are. They are attempting to assemble fragments of Kogachi’s ever-changing knowledge and experience. This isn’t a linear process, and the paintings’ distortions, collapses of distance, floating forms and impossible viewpoints feel like visual evidence of memory with its gentle uncertainty and longing.

There is a universality within Kogachi’s work as so many of us grapple with layered histories and heritages in our contemporary world. She navigates these themes with curiosity and charm, play and deft skill. These paintings are not about arriving at an understanding of culture; they are about learning how to live inside the process of understanding it.