KONDOH Akino Exhibition "Flesh"（TOKYO）

Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by KONDOH Akino “Flesh”. This is her second solo show at this venue and is comprised of new oil paintings.

In her previous and first solo exhibition at Mizuma Art Gallery, she created and showed an animation work “Ladybirds’ Requiem”. To create it, one second required 15 sheets of drawings, and as a whole, it consisted of approximately 3,000 drawings. She had a chance to look at them after the completion and was shocked at its lack of presence. Regardless of the amount, each drawing was not established as a complete artwork, and she realized that an animation is only an accumulation of thin veneer of paper, and it gave her unpleasant sensation. Moreover its flatness created in the combination with computerized background brought a vague anxiety and made her question herself about what she has been engaging. It was when she approached to oil paint which requires many layers to complete one work. The artist aimed to create an artwork which has specific presence, rather than creating a great number of drawings. 

The theme of the show is a “mixture of human and plant” where they eat each other, and the flesh of fruit resembles to human organ. In other words, she explores a state of human and plant mixed together. 

When she was having uneventful days coming and going between her home and studio, subtle things and changes around her life, such as growth of plants on the street, change in temperature and her own weight, a picture and an insect that looked delicious, and finding her own tendency to dislike red food and physiological aversion on fruits… inspired her. One day when she was continuously adding layers of oil paint with those vague ideas in mind, she strongly felt that the theme of her work is at “mixture of human and plant”. 

She once drew those motives as a child and threw them away because she wanted nobody to see the pieces. Oil paintings exhibited in this show can be a part of those childhood drawings.

Although her previous works are mainly in monochrome, some colors are appeared this time. Her favorite colors that have been in her mind since her childhood, such as two-colored pencil (vermillion and navy), candy, elastic band and cartilage, have been applied to new oil paintings.

We hope you enjoy the layer of the artist’s internal aspect on canvas which has never been expressed within her animation and drawings.