I am surprised that the weather changes rapidly here from being fine to be full of mountainous clouds, raining, thundering and fine again.
I feel the flowing of clouds reflect in me when I see them flowing fast in the puddle.
Asuka Hirata in Brande, Denmark

Asuka Hirata’s primitive and exotic style has been formed through the experience in artist-in-residence programs abroad in Mexico, Kenya, and Spain. In this exhibition held after an interval of the solo exhibition at Art Fair Tokyo last year, she expresses directly on paper what she experienced and felt in artist-in-residence program in Brande, Denmark last year.

You can see some clouds drawn all over the body in “cloud-man”. When we are in Nature, we sometimes feel we are a part of it and feel we melt into scenery of Nature. Hirata tried to express how the scenery “infiltrates” into the body as if the body itself is a machine which takes in the scenery. The clouds seem to be projected on a body as a screen since the shape of the clouds link each other on the same plane. After the clouds pass by on the body, he will be empty thoroughly and consider what he shall take in next.

Three freshly severed heads in “talking about all sorts of the thing“ look like a totem pole. She expresses the chattering petty things and the gathering with her friends in Brande.

You may feel that these figures in Hirata’s paintings seem to be empty. It can be said from a different angle, they are obedient and flexible to be painted in any colors. Please make yourself empty and stand face to face with her paintings.

* The text provided by YOKOI FINE ART

Opened dates: July 16 - 31, 2010