Atsushi Aizawa Solo Exhibition
“No Man's Land”
Opening Reception
August 12th (Sat) 18.00 - 20.00pm
■Period:
August 12th (Saturday) — Sepember 30th (Saturday), 2017
■Hours:
12.00pm - 19.00 pm | Closed on Sun, Mon, National Holidays
*Summer vacation: Aug 15—Aug 19
*Temporarily closed: Sep 14—Sep 16
■Venue:
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
4-7-6 Shirakawa, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0021 JAPAN
tel +81 3 5843 9128 e-mail gallery@kanakawanishi.com
Untitled (production image for “No Man’s Land”) 2017 © Atsushi Aizawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
Untitled (production image for “No Man’s Land”) 2017 © Atsushi Aizawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
Untitled
2017
© Atsushi Aizawa
courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY
KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of Atsushi Aizawa’s solo exhibition, No Man’s Land, on Saturday, August 12th.
NihongaAtushi Aizawa has been subliming the traditional aesthetics of (Japanese traditional painting, which use pigments deriving from natural ingredients such minerals, shells, corals, and many others) into latest contemporary expressions of media art, by featuring phenomena in the nature including rust, magnetism, and others. His academic background which crosses over both Nihonga and media art, has been enabling him to bring the hidden invisible elements in our nature to come to sight.
In this exhibition No Man’s Land, Aizawa describes the intermediate area between the nature and the human being, found in the everyday life that we live, which is a new approach one step forward from his past works, where phenomena in the nature had been simply and purely been put into figures.
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The title of this exhibition, No Man’s Land, means a land that is unoccupied or is under dispute between parties who leave it unoccupied due to fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dumping ground for refuse between fiefdoms. Nowadays, it is commonly associated with the World War I to describe the area of land between two enemy trench systems, which neither side wished to cross or seize due to fear of being attacked by the enemy in the process.
Aizawa describes the inspiration of the exhibition derived from the uncertainty of when he saw a net that was covering a slope of mud aside of a road. The slope, which is part of the nature, exists there because of human purposes of efficient living, which appeared to Aizawa as a symbolic status of ambiguity between natural and artificial. Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint-Exupér, renowned for his novel The Little Prince, described in Wind, Sand and Stars that humans can finally see themselves only by knowing more about the land throughout his tactful essay condensing fifteen years of experience as an aviator. Aizawa, who shows sympathy in this idea or Saint-Exupér, would make an homage to this novel in which was first published in France, back in 1939.
Effect - #12014 | 180 x 90 cm each | iron, alkaline solution, sodium chloride solution, ferric chloride solution, acetic acid | ©Atsushi Aizawa, courtesy of KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY | Flow(ov)er(left: installation view, right: detail) 2015 | iron powder, wood panel | size variable (10.0 × 10.0 × 5.5 cm each) | photo by Nobutada Omote | © Atsushi Aizawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY | flow(ov)erinstallation view | 2015 | iron powder, wood panel | size variable (10.0 × 10.0 × 5.5 cm each) | photo by Nobutada Omote | © Atsushi Aizawa, courtesy KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY |
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Combining his aesthetics and perspectives acquired from Nihonga, together with the innovative ideas of contemporary media art, Aizawa demonstrates a unique hybrid of his background and visualizes the invisible forces hidden in the nature. This exhibition would be a precious occasion of seeing the young artist evolving his expressions furthermore, and questions us the relationship of human and the nature.
■Artist Statement
In order to live, humans handle all things on the earth, drill mountains, dig and reclaim the sea. Throughout this process, an intermediate area in which does not belong to either humans nor the nature would appear under a truly complex balance. I thought of examining the relationship between humans and the nature, from the perspective of this intermediate area.
In the foreword of Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine Saint-Exupér describes his perspcetive of humans and the earth:
The earth teaches us more about ourselves than all the books in the world, because it is resistant to us.
Self-discovery comes when man measures himself against an obstacle.
True, it was by using a tool such as the aircraft that humans could see the full face of the earth.
Including this encountering with the earth, humans have been enriching their lives through the usage of various tools, but on the other hand, it is also very true that we have been exploiting the nature. Even when humans are resisting against the nature, we have no choice but to comply with its laws at the same time. When speaking of the history of aircrafts, regrettably, it is equal to the history of crashes. Through my works distilling natural phenomena such as rust and magnetism I have been proactively participating a dialogue with the nature, expressing the relationship between humans and the nature and their vitalities. This derives from my view that everytime I hear voices shouting of the nature, the more I feel we are lacking knowledge of them.
How far can humans intervene in natural environment?
We must discuss the balance between urban cities and spaces, and humans and the nature.
Atsuhi Aizawa
◼︎Artist Profile
Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1991. Aizawa enrolled in Tama Art University, Faculty of Art and Design, Department of Painting, Japanese Painting Course in 2011, and graduated Tama Art University, Faculty of Art and Design, Department of Information Design, Art and Media Course in 2015. Aizawa visualizes invisible forces of nature while making use of both his academic backgrounds in Nihonga (Japanese painting) and media art. Solo exhibitions include Self Do, Self Have (2016, COURTYARD HIROO Gallery) and Effect (2015, SONO AIDA #1).
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