AOYAMA Satoru "Glitter Pieces #1-22"（TOKYO）

Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new embroidery works by the Japanese artist AOYAMA Satoru.

AOYAMA is known for his photo-realistic embroidery made by an old industrial sewing machine (Irish Machine). He previously used the images of familiar landscapes and found objects, and stitching them onto organza, the artist attempted to transform their value. 

“Glitter Pieces” features twenty-two new works. Most images here were taken from the magazines and books according to his interest. Ignoring the original color information and sewing with black and metallic thread, the image loses its original meaning and renews interpretation. The work surface has a digital pixel-like effect yet certainly produces hand made texture.

Among those twenty-two, fourteen were exhibited at a group show in Yokohama in 2008. The works were hung in the air as if linking to each other and suspending the subject. Subsequent numbers presented at “Glitter Pieces” at Mizuma Art Gallery are also based on clippings consciously selected by the artist from the magazines. Here Aoyama equally embroiders the reverse side of the scraps and exhibits them back to back. 

Innovation of information technology consumes an enormous amount of images and they are stereotypically translated into familiar language. Benefit from the technology and the humanity we may lose instead. Deliberately stitched work by Aoyama itself questions the meaning of the images we see and might provoke the uncertainty of our reality.

AOYAMA Satoru was born in 1973, currently lives and works in Tokyo. Aoyama received his BA from Goldsmiths College, London (1998) and MFA from The Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (2001). His recent solo exhibition includes: Good Aliens, One in the Other, London (2007), Ancient Pixels, The Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (2007). In group show, his works are featured in NEOTENY JAPAN from Takahashi Collection, currently touring in Japan. He previously included in THE ECHO, ZAIM, Yokohama (2008), Alllooksame? ARTCHINAJAPANKOREAART (curated by Fransesco Bonami), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2006) and The Souvenir Mine (curated by AOYAMA Satoru), Mizuma Art Gallery Tokyo (2006).

The exhibition will be accompanied by a booklet with text by Seiichi TSUCHIYA, art critic.