EMI OTAGURO

Artist bio

channel
April 23 - June 5, 2016
Opening reception: Saturday, April 23, 6-8 pm
Talk show: Friday, May 13, 7pm- Emi Otaguro, O JUN (Artist), Yoko Nose (Curator, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art)
Closed on Mon., Tue. and national holidays and 5/6-8

EMI OTAGURO　sun bath　2016, lambda print, 35.2 x 26.3 cm

KAYOKOYUKI is pleased to announce the solo exhibition with Emi Otaguro. Otaguro was born in 1980 in Fukuoka, Japan.

Recently, Otaguro presented her work in "project N 55" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2014, "Water pillow of will-o'-the-wisp, curated by KAYOKOYUKI" at Aoyama | Meguro, Tokyo, 2013, "TRICK-DIMENSION, curated by Daisuke Ohba" at tolot: heuristic SHINONOME, Toko, 2013, "YON-SHIKI, curated by O JUN" at youkobo artspace, Tokyo, 2010, "Mr FREEDOM X, curated by Tadasuke Iwanaga" at A+, Tokyo, 2009, WORM HOLE episode3" atmagical, ARTROOM, Tokyo, 2006, and she received the grand prize of Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2008.Lives and works in Aichi.

Wet plaster, cardboard, chewing gum, Quail' s eggshells, vinyl sheets, and galvanized sheets —Emi Otaguro has employed diverse materials as painting tools for her creations. The materials and support mediums in Otagro’s painting, selected depending on respective narratives while maintaining "flatness" to form them as a painting, play an important role as storyteller for interpretation of her artwork.

One of her representative artworks which uses "chewing gum" is created through the following process: After forming a shape by use of several sheets of gum, they are "carved" with a cutter as if producing a relief. Although the just-finished artwork has a faint mint fragrance and has fresh machine-pressed marks suggestive of mass production, the odor will fade away and the edge of the artwork will be rounded off as time elapses. Although the chewing gum which is "not swallowed although it is classified as a food" is not directly helpful in providing nourishment for our bodies in a time of disaster, etc., it remains in existence as a tool for providing "Ma (empty time)" for diversion in our busy everyday life. Therefore, the motifs of her artwork are people sunbathing in the park, or the people and animals that are in an ambiguous state between awaking and sleeping while they are relaxed and in the instinctive state of mind.

In this exhibition, Otaguro' s new photographic artwork featuring her "sun bath" series, the artwork made of chewing gum, will be exhibited. This photographic artwork was created by photographing a carved piece of gum placed on the back of a live cat. This piece was created in an improvisational manner using a stray cat which happened to visit her studio. Otagro states that a cat's fur is a place like a "channel" where tiny dust particles that attached while being exposed to the air and bodily waste excreted from a living organism happen to encounter. Please come and view the Otagro' s latest artwork which is based on the unpredictable actions of a cat and a piece of chewing gum whose shape changes over the years — Otagro continues to create while facing with time, the uncontrollable existence. This is an attempt comparable to perceiving distant islands far across the expanse of ocean surface that changes from moment to moment.