Events category: Private view

15 February 2018

Private View: Setsuko Ono

In 2018 Japanese artist Setsuko Ono will bring her work to London for the first time.
Ono creates steel sculptures characterised by their cut-out shapes, forming open and closed figures and designs. The cut-out silhouettes are bent in an animated way, while the cut-out negatives let sunlight and views of nature through.
The exhibition will include sculpture and mixed media paintings that reflect the artist’s interest in international politics; visitors will be able to use virtual reality goggles to experience Ono’s permanent installations in Japan.

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11 January 2018

Private View and Artist Talk: Bridge by Toshio Shibata

Bridges are one of the main subjects of the work of Toshio Shibata, one of Japan’s preeminent landscape photographers, and known for exploring the delicate balance between man-made structures and nature. This exhibition does not only display many of Shibata’s bridges, but also “bridges” Shibata’s forty-year career. The artist was joined in conversation by Dr Phillip Prodger, Head of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery.

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2 November 2017

Private View: Reimagining Nature: Hitomi Hosono's Memories in Porcelain

Combining memories of her mother’s garden in Gifu with inspiration found in the parks of London, the work of Hitomi Hosono demonstrates a meticulous study of botanical forms. Hosono makes use of hand-carved models and plaster moulds, to make individual porcelain plant forms that are then applied to vase or bowl forms, enveloping the object’s underlying shape to create an intensely intricate texture that captivates with its delicate beauty.

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3 October 2017

Private View: Absence and Ambience by Takashi Kawashima

Takashi Kawashima creates works to suggest ‘absent’ stories, which recount catastrophes caused by overwhelming natural powers, tracing the memory of the land via the imaginary narrative woven by the artist’s own experiences and questions. In the artist’s first UK solo exhibition Absence and Ambience, one of the two rooms of the gallery was dedicated to the project Unfinished Topography/Collection, a collection of fragmented stories of catastrophes which happened after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. In the other room, Kawashima examined the uncertainty surrounding us in our daily lives through the motif of ‘shadow’.

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14 September 2017

Private View and Artist Talk ─ Decorative but Calm

While working to promote their traditional works, the artists of Decorative but Calm have realised that craftsmanship is an international language; crafts appeal to the personal sensibility of each viewer. In this exhibition the pursuit of elaborate designs aims, in a true expression of Japanese aesthetics, to create a “decorative but calm” space for reflection that does not intend to overwhelm the viewer.

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20 July 2017

Private View: The Kyoto Tea House - An Impression

In this exhibition, several famous Kyoto tea houses were introduced through photographs, architectural diagrams and other forms, to convey an understanding of key concepts such as wabi-sabi.
During the Private View event, Japan’s leading calligrapher Tomoko Kawao offered a calligraphy demonstration, and the portable tea room Kian built by Masayuki Inaida was also on display.

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30 May 2017

Private View: To Look at the Fire by Toshiaki Hicosaka

The first London solo exhibition of the artist Toshiaki Hicosaka invited us to reflect on the world through fire: the driver of evolution, life, comfort and violence. From ocean to fire, his immersive installations of painting embraced elements of the everyday. Through this new body of work by the artist, viewers were able to rethink the social and cultural environment that they live within.

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12 April 2017

Private View: var i = phenomena; var x = future; for (i < x) {i++} by Shigetoshi Furutani

var i = phenomena; var x = future; for (i < x) {i++} is the first solo exhibition in London by Shigetoshi Furutani. His work seeks a more effective way to deal with the limitations of language and to expand the expression of the two-dimensional form in an age of social media, engaging with the limits of chaos and order, proliferation and restriction. In this exhibition, Furutani juxtaposes digital collages of found footage and images and animations created by the artist himself.

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12 January 2017

Private View: 2s, 3s & 4s by Natsko Seki

2s, 3s & 4s is the first London solo exhibition of Natsko Seki, an established freelance illustrator known for her bright and playful style, which she often employs for travel-related illustrations and children’s books. Drawing viewers into her works, the artist creates a world where the differences in things have whimsical harmony as well as rhythmical contrasts.

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