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Ulala Imai. ATLANTIS, 2024. Oil on canvas. 891⁄2 × 715⁄8 in. (227.33 × 181.93 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Karma.

Ulala Imai
Karma
January 16 – February 22, 2025

Ulala Imai’s CALM at Karma transforms the everyday into an extraordinary symphony of light and texture, blending intimacy with universality. Through fluid, unbroken brushstrokes, Imai imbues her subjects—a collection of toys, landscapes, and domestic objects—with a vivid, almost supernatural vitality. In Atlantis (2024), a solitary teddy bear, wrapped in a vibrant robe, stands ensnared in branches, its fur tousled by an imagined breeze as sunlight dances across jagged coastal rocks. Imai’s meticulous yet unpretentious technique captures the interplay between the fragile figure and the untamed landscape, imbuing each detail with life. Even in works devoid of figures, such as Calm (2024), her glowing landscapes hum with quiet animism, transforming snow, moonlight, and pine needles into sentient elements. As a whole, the exhibition creates a world of quiet wonder, where the mundane is reimagined as radiant, deeply interconnected, and alive with possibility.