Rica Kagawa — CalArts Post Grad Show Y25

Rica Kagawa

(Art MFA 25)
IG: @smartest_idiot

i spy; untitled; i hope this message finds you well, 2024 – 2025

Rica Kagawa explores queer monster theory and care through a black and white monochromatic palette. The figure of the monster — tangible yet bodiless, observable yet invisible–is a reflection of the artist yet not quite them. The monster is both a ghost and a real body, gazing back out towards the viewers. This gaze witnesses those that fall under the category of “monster” while challenging queer erasure. The monster exists in a parasitic ecosystem with Kagawa, both struggling to disappear while attempting to be seen in the body they inhabit, splitting and merging all at once in a dance of power and chaos where rage, agony, bliss, naivety, absence, presence, and queerness coexist. Through mischievous resistance and oracle intervention, a star emerges from darkness. The star announces a portal for future care and illuminates a path to healing. The fixed luminous point sparks from the monster’s palm like a remote iridescent body that brightly lights quiet rage, burning in the endless night.

PROXY CHIMERA ORACLE

CalArts 2025