Mitsu Salmon: Somatic Tracing

Somatic Tracing is a combination of paintings and performances that draw from two movements that emerged in Japan after WWII: Gutai, a group of artists associated with action painting, and Butoh, a form of contemporary dance. The project explores the largely hidden history of Asian labor in the United States, in particular the work done on the transcontinental railroad. Dynamite, central to the labor of the Asian railroad workers, was used to blast through mountains to make way for the railroad tracks. The gesture of the explosion is what initially drew Salmon, but rather than focusing on the violence of that act, she chose to use it to illustrate how a body can contain and release history, place, and affect to allow for transformation and re-imagining. Her large-scale movement-based color field paintings, performative objects, and soundscape echo this act.