Iku Harada, Tomomi Nishizawa Exhibition:"This, and the Other"

This, and the Other

Tomomi Nishizawa (Tokyo University of the Arts, graduated 2014), a young artist who recently received the Salon de Printemps Award, projects the theme of“cosmetic beauty” in her installation pieces using eyelash curlers and other beauticians’ tools. Although we find the topic of “cosmetics” appearing as frequently as “fashion” in magazines and on television, it is a theme rarely touched upon in art. Similar to the practice of some women seen applying make-up in public trains, a topic that has often been talked about, people distinguish the way they use, or show and hide, their inner and outer faces. There are many examples of art exploring the virtual and real, but delving deeply into the theme of inner and outer distinctions by focusing on cosmetics gives Nishizawa a special place. In the past and under the male gaze Carot, Bonnard and Seurat have respectively treated the theme of“cosmetics,” and the novelist Kawabata Yasunari wrote Kesho (Make-up). Not only does Nishizawa succeed in overcoming this male perspective in her intriguing plastic installations, but she also contributes to the contemporary viewpoint by capturing the “cosmetic” within the female milieu.

In contrast, Iku Harada first creates a virtual three-dimensional space with a computer, and then paints the scene on a canvas. Regardless of being a fictional world, the sun rises, shadows fall, a room exists, and through a window one sees furniture inside. By rendering the computer’s virtual image to a flat surface that is again hung in an actual exhibition space, an enigmatic spatial representation is possible with the nesting of the virtual and real. In this exhibition, her two-dimensional paintings are accompanied with objects from the virtual world recreated in real space, and installations combining both the flat and solid are attempted. Virtual space, cut away from its context, is recast in the real world.

Our contemporary world overflows with information that has become the alternative for the “actual,” and is a multifarious world. Cosmetics are no more simply “cosmetic,” and “this” is the “other” where the “inside” inverts to the “outside.” In this exhibition, we introduce two artists and their new and recent works that give expression to the contemporary condition.

Toshio Kondo, Art Front Gallery

Tomomi Nishizawa (Photo :Work detail )

■biography
1989 born inTokyo
2014 M.F.A at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music
2012 won the Arts Graduated Exhibition award for collection / Tokyo
2014 won the Arts Graduated Exhibition award for Salon De Printemps / Tokyo

■Selected Exhibitions
SOURCE sight exhibition, source factory / Tokyo
Tomomi Nishizawa Solo Exhibition, source factory / Tokyo
Mag, Gallery Sakura / Tokyo
Sentan Prize 2012 Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music / Tokyo

Iku Harada

■biography
1982 born in Yamagata
2005 graduated from Tokyo University of Art and Design
2007 M.F.A at Tokyo University of Art and Design Gradate school
2010 awarded Liquitex Prize at GEISAI #14 /Tokyo
10th Gunma Art Biennale of Youth 2010 Museum of Modern Art Gunma / Gunma
2003 awarded Encouragement Prize at Yamagata Prefectural art exhibition

■selected solo exhibition
2013 Iku Harada Solo Exhibition ? One Window and Awaking Garden Art Front Gallery / Tokyo
2012 Landscape of the Children ? on unknown countries and their people Lamp harajuku B1Gallery / Tokyo
2011 Iku Harada Solo Exhibition 2011, Harmas Gallery / Tokyo

■selected group exhibitons
2014 summer forum 2014 / Tochigi
Art stage Singapore, Marina Bay Sans Convention and Exhibition Centre / Singapore
2012 ULTRA 003 Emerging Art Directors Art Fair (Directed by Hironori Yagi), Spiral / Tokyo
2012 Living Places : Iku Harada and Ryota Sato, Harmas Gallery / Tokyo
2011 Inside the Garden : Iku Harada and Miyuki Takenaka, Art Front Gallery / Tokyo