EXHIBITION

1 of 5 :
"waiting for awakening -wall clock-"
2018
naphthalene, resin, mixed media
Photo: KIOKU Keizo
Ⓒ MIYANAGA Aiko, Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery
2 of 5 :
"valley of sleeping sea -cat-"
2023
glass, air (cast from Tozan Kiln’s plaster mold)
Photo by OMOTE Nobutada
Ⓒ MIYANAGA Aiko, Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery
3 of 5 :
"night voyage -shoe-"
naphthalene, mixed media
Photo by OMOTE Nobutada
Ⓒ MIYANAGA Aiko, Courtesy of Mizuma Art Gallery
4 of 5 :
Photo by OMOTE Nobutada
5 of 5 :
Photo by OMOTE Nobutada

imura art gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Aiko Miyanaga.


Aiko Miyanaga was born in Kyoto in 1974. She received a BA in Sculpture from Kyoto University of Art and Design in 1999 and an MA in Inter-media Art from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 2008. The artist is popular for her works that visualize time using traces of presence, such as objets made from naphthalene in the shape of everyday items, and installations incorporating salt, the veins of leaves, and the sound of the kannyu hairline cracks forming in pottery glaze. The objets made from naphthalene, which sublimes at room temperature, are iconic examples of this aspect of her work. They have a pliable existence, changing over the passage of time, with the naphthalene recrystallizing within the case.


Miyanaga’s first solo exhibition at imura art gallery will display mainly works in naphthalene and glass, including her masterwork, waiting for awakening –wall clock–, and a new piece titled valley of sleeping sea –cat–.


Waiting for awakening –wall clock– is a work in which a clock made of naphthalene is encased in transparent resin, with a single small hole. As long as the hole is sealed, the clock rests quietly inside the resin. But when the seal is broken, the work slowly wakes up as it comes into contact with the air. The air bubbles in the work are the result of Miyanaga's process of pouring the resin into the piece layer by layer, trapping the air in place.


Having returned to Kyoto—where she was born and raised—for the first time in about sixteen years, she has started to create new works. Living in Kyoto often leads to noticing the existence of things that have been handed down unchanged from generation to generation. Many of the plaster molds that were used back when Miyanaga's great-grandfather opened the Miyanaga Tozan pottery studio remain there today. They had been there when she was a child, but she had never paid much attention to them. Now, she wonders about the images that lie dormant in the recesses of those molds. Where parts are missing, she fills the depressions—or valleys—of the molds with glass, giving form to the absence of those parts (space) before releasing the product from the mold to see the result. Miyanaga explains that it's like going back to visit the past. Most of the figurines that were created from these molds no longer exist today. But the heft of the piece in one's hand makes one feel that history still sleeps within them.


This solo presentation of Aiko Miyanaga’s works seems to bring out the continuity of a world that remains although everything is changing.

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Aiko Miyanaga solo exhibition

2023/7/22 (Sat.) - 8/5 (Sat.) *Closed on Mondays, Sundays and National Holidays

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