The first time you see her, Mika Kato does not appear very different from the typical young female Tokyo contemporary art insider, another of the attractive and sophisticated sort that flutter from gallery opening to gallery opening each Friday evening to sip white wine and style the scene so fashionably, so snobbishly.
Once Kato starts talking, however, her squeaky fresh voice and frank manner quickly tell you how wrong first impressions can be. Behind the seemingly elitist exterior lives a warm and down-to-earth young woman from the Aichi countryside.
For this critic and many others attending the recent opening party for Kato's first-ever art exhibition, the artist's personality was a nice surprise and a refreshing change. I'm telling you all this because there was another, even bigger surprise for Tokyo's difficult-to-surprise art crowd the same night, and that was the work this delightful artist has been quietly developing for the last several years, work that is nothing less than awesome.