塩田千春 / Chiharu Shiota

Born in 1972, Osaka. Lives and works in Berlin. Confronting the fundamental human concerns, life and death, Shiota explores what life is, and what existence is, to create large-scale thread installations as well as sculpture, photography and video, expressing the existences within absences such as the memories that dwell in a location. In 2015, she represented Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition. Solo exhibitions have been held at KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theater (2016), Smithsonian Institution Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (2014), Museum of Art, Kochi (2013), Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (2012) and National Museum of Art, Osaka (2008). She has also participated in many international exhibitions including the Oku-Noto Trinnale (2017), Biennale of Sydney (2016), Busan Biennale (2014) and Setouchi International Art Festival (2010) In February 2018, Toshio Hosokawa’s opera “Matsukaze” which she served as stage design for, will be presented for the first time in Japan at the New National Theatre, Tokyo.

Tanaka is an artist that uses fire to create from two-dimensional and three-dimensional works, to installations. His question towards paintings as a way of expression lies at the base of his work. He does not just simply indicate the answer to the question “what is fire?” when he uses fire, but he tries to materialise this question by placing fire between the inevitabile and coincidence. His empathy towards Nietzsche’s concept of ‘becoming’ in opposition to the European ontology (metaphysics that lead to Plato’s theory of forms) is also entrusted in the flames.

(Shingo Tanaka)

Shibata mainly creates reliefs using paper and thin woods as a support. His complex and delicate “Monkiri-gasane” series that uses layers of papercuts, the reliefs created from extremely thin wooden boards, and his sculptures that thoroughly imitate to the point of exceeding the real thing, all have a delicate yet solid texture to the details, and show his tenacious ethics as a creator. Much of the themes of his works, such as the “light and shadow of the city”, and the “insanity and aggression concealed in humans”, connect strongly with ideas that come from his experiences, and as a visualisation of each of these individuals, they are sure to win the hearts of those who see them.

(Seiichi Shibata)

“I create to search for the true state of what lies in front of me.” says Horikawa. She observes and analyses to explore the state of the thing, as if looking into a persons mind. The lines which she then draws upon paper like a diagram, appear to be representing the truth although it is too delicate to be seen by the human eye. “When we hear the name of something, we can easily think of its shape in our minds. We communicate through this mutual image. But is the thing in front of us really the same as our image? What on earth was what we believed we knew…?” The pursuit of the shared image of humans begins, as Horikawa’s mind takes shape.

(Sunao Horikawa)