AYAKO OHNO

Artist bio

Person like fish
July 7 - August 5, 2018
Opening reception: Saturday, July 7, 6-8pm

Ayako Ohno has created her sculptures by sticking with stone as a material of expression. The image visualized by Ohno achieves its unique form while giving much thought to harmonization and balance with the substance called stone. Although Ohno sticks to stone as material for expression, her artwork shows a free, light spirit, being free from the traditional concept of stone sculpture.

In this exhibition, her new artwork “Person like fish” will be introduced in a setting that conjures up an image of a stage scene composed of stones and plywood panels. This artwork, whose title is also the exhibition title, is created based on an image where a person made of marble spills out of a gallery space. While its appearance is rich in a sense of speed and fluidity, its composition with a strong awareness of frontality makes coexistence of opposites such as flatness/three-dimensionality, static/dynamic, and bound/free within one artwork possible.

The frontality and the coexistence of different images shown in Ohno’s new artwork “Person like fish” are common features in all of her artwork. These features derive from a feature that her three-dimensional artwork has one surface which remains untouched. This seems to be a rule on her creation formed during the process of expressing her image while maximizing the strength of the stone as a physical existence. Upon facing the artwork created based on the Ohno’s original rule, the viewer is liberated from preconceived ideas on stone and sculpture, and struck with the sensation of encountering the unknown. Despite employing stone, a material considered to be hard and heavy, Ohno’s artwork has a sense of lightness, and presents an unprecedented possibility for stone carving.

Ayako Ohno was born in 1983 in Saitama, Japan.
Recently, Ohno received the grand prize of Daikokuya Contemporary Art Raise Exhibition 2012, and presented her work in "Sakanatoshite Tsukaru" at Itamuro Onsen Daikokuya, Tochigi, 2013, "Tokorozawa Biennial of Contemporary Art –railroad siding 2017" in Saitama, "Reborn-Art Festival 2017 -Do sculptors Dream of electric car (TOYOTA prius) curated by XYZ collective" at GALVANIZE gallery, Miyagi, 2017, "To right, from left." at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2016, "Work shop: Kurashinonakani mirukatachi" at Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo, 2014. Her works have be located at Shodo island, Kagawa, and Kanagawa Sagamihara Park, Kanagawa, Sukagawa Midorigaoka Park, Fukushima. Lives and works in Saitama.

http://ohnoayako.com/