REVERSE OF VOLUME
Yasuaki Onishi
Opening reception: Thursday, 17 May from 6 to 9pm
Exhibition: 17 May – 21 June, 2018
Press and events
YASUAKI ONISHI
Reverse of Volume
Opening : Thursday 17 may 6 to 9 pm
Exhibition : 17 may– 21 june 2018
Yasuaki Onishi creates sculptures that make visible spaces normally perceived as hollow or blank, revolving around straightforward themes of volume, verticality and distance. Using materials that do not retain shapes easily – glue and polyethylene sheeting – and working with actions, phenomena and time as compositional elements, he applies a delicate sensibility to elaborate forms at the boundary between human agency and nature. Assuming shapes that seem to manifest before us as landscapes – vast mountains and glacier caves, seas whipped up by the wind or silhouetted nebulae – these molded forms occupy the space and envelop the viewer. The material turned into art pieces becomes substance, revealing things that cannot be seen and the space is transformed into a vessel filled with beauty, storing up the viewers’ boundless thoughts and imagination. Through Onishi’s sculptures, we catch glimpses of possible passageways to the reverse side of the world in which we live.
Reverse of Volume:
For his first solo show at the gallery, Yasuaki Onishi presents an installation created specifically for the space on Rue Chapon, which is an integral part of the Reverse of Volume series. That body of in situ works started in 2010 is itself an element of a broader project by the Japanese artist, titled Sculpting Emptiness, which while deviating from preexisting sculptural expression also examines its very essence.
For Reverse of Volume, polyethylene sheeting is spread over a pile of cardboard boxes, forming the outline of vague forms resembling mountain ridges. Heated glue is dripped directly over those from a glue gun, creating a large number of vertical lines that fill the upper part of the space, after which the cardboard boxes are removed in order to reveal the piece. On entering the empty interior, the viewer is bathed in soft variations of light and shadows created by the floating sheet, and experiences this new feeling of “seeing the reverse side of a sculpture”.
Yasuaki Onishi was born in 1979 in Osaka, Japan. He lives and works in Osaka.
Download the press release here.
Yasuaki ONISHI
Born in 1979, Osaka, Japan
Works and lives in Osaka, Japan
SOLO SHOWS
2018 Reverse of Volume, Galerie Virginie Louvet, Paris, France
2018 Reverse of Volume, Arte Sella, Borgo Valsugana, Italy
2016 Vertical volume, The Mine, Dubai | UAE
2015 Contour of gravity, Gallery OUT of PLACE TOKIO, Tokyo, Japan
Penetrating bowl, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Geijutu-kan, Kyoto, Japan
2014
Empty sculpture, ARTCOURT GALLERY, Osaka, Japan
2012 Inner space, The Wilfrid Israel Museum, Hazorea, Israel
Reverse of volume, Rice Gallery, Houston, USA
2011 Reverse of volume, Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya, Japan
2010 Reverse of volume, Vermont Studio Center Red Mill Gallery, Johnson, USA
Reverse of volume, KINOKINO Centre for Art and Film, Sandnes, Norway
2008 Dairy distance, Sølyst Artists in Residence Centre, Jyderup, Denmark
2007 Space between face and reverse, PANTALOON, Osaka, Japan
2006 Visible, Sfera Exhibition, Kyoto, Japan
2005 Breath nebula, INAX GALLERY 2, Tokyo, Japan
2004 Restriction sight, neutron B1 GALLERY, Kyoto, Japan
2003 Thing of darkness, GALLERY b.TOKYO, Tokyo, Japan
GROUP SHOWS
2019 New Japan, Solyanka State Gallery, Moscow, Russia
2016 Fresh Paint 8 International Exhibition – Tilted, Yarid Hamizrach, Tel Aviv, Israel
2015 VIDE ET PLEIN, Espace Commines, Paris, France
Erosion, Transfiguration, Zuiun-an, Kyoto, Japan
RELIEF(S), Frac Centre, Orléans, France
2014 In Search of Critical Imagination, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
2013 Mono No Aware. Japanese Contemporary Art, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
HANARART 2013, Asai’s winery, Yamatokoriyama, Japan
Dreamscape – La porte de l’écume, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto, Japan
2012 Agorà – Miniartextil, Villa Olmo, Como, Italy
2011 Ways of Worldmaking, The National Museum of Art Osaka, Osaka, Japan
2010 Art Court Frontier #8, ARTCOURT GALLERY, Osaka, Japan
2009 Against The Sculptural, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, Korea
HOME, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori, Japan
2008 Point éphémère, Bunkamura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
Eyes Curiosity – Japanese Contemporary Art, Soka Contemporary Space, Taipei, Taiwan
2007 ARTS CHALLENGE 2007, AICHI ARTS CENTER, Nagoya, Japan
2006 Remove a sign. piano, piano, Osaka Port Red Brick Warehouse, Osaka, Japan
2005 Selected Artists in Kyoto 2005 -New Wave- , Kyoto Cultural Museum, Kyoto, Japan
2003 7th GUNMA BIENNALE FOR YOUNG ARTIST 2003, The Museum of Modern Art, Takasaki, Japan
EDUCATION
1997-2001 B.A. Sculpture Course, School of Art & Design, University of Tsukuba, Japan
2002-2004 M.A. Sculpture Course, Graduate School of Art, Kyoto City University of Arts,Japan
PRIZES
2014 The Sakuyakonohana prize
2012 Project to Support the Nurturing of Media Arts Creators, Agency for Cultural Affairs
2011 Received a research grant from Pola Art Foundation to study in London, England.
2010 The Pollock – Krasner Foundation
2009 IASK Asia Pacific Artists Fellowship, National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea
2007 1st SHUO foundation
2007 Taro prize, The 10th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art
2006 Second prize, JEANS FACTORY ART AWARD 2006
9th Japan Media Arts Festival, Examination committee recommendation work, Art Division
2005 Grand prix, AMUSE ART JAM 2005 in KYOTO
