Shiori Eda's Paris Show Explores Freedom Beyond Words

Japanese artist Shiori Eda's latest exhibition, "Cast Aside Words," at A2Z Art Gallery in Paris, is on view through August 29, 2026. The show marks a departure from her earlier cosmic landscapes, focusing instead on forces like gravity, language, and systems of documentation. Eda's paintings feature minuscule female figures in vast, elemental settings, now incorporating motifs like balloons and parachutes to explore gravity as a physical anchor. The exhibition questions whether breaking free from words can lead to a more immediate experience of reality, especially in an era dominated by information, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Eda explains that explanations proved detrimental to her creative process, and she felt AI and algorithms made the physical body stand out more. Works like "Where Are We" and "Life With Documents" explicitly depict these themes, placing humans alongside documents as symbols of societal frameworks. Eda describes her art as a device to truly feel her existence, and she views the act of "swaying" between explanation and letting go as a solution, believing true strength lies in softness. She notes that her work may outlive her and could acquire significance by transcending the era. The exhibition was reported by Forbes on August 7, 2026.