Aki Kondo
17 Feb - 07 Mar 2015
AKI KONDO
HIKARI
17 February – 7 March 2015
We are pleased to announce a new solo exhibition for Aki Kondo, where the artist will unveil the fruits of her past year’s work: a new film.
Kondo’s creative activities have to date occupied the realm of painting. Still, an awareness of aspects of her vision inexpressible in that medium prompted her to expand her practice. The new film includes not only live-action footage, but animation based on oil paintings – an indication that she still identifies herself primarily as a painter.
Kondo says she has longed for years to see her paintings spring to life, and the animated sections of the film represent the realization of that dream. Still, while she calls the new work a film, she also sees it as being inextricably linked to her regular painting practice.
One of the main motifs of HIKARI is the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. At the time of the disaster, Kondo was still a postgraduate student at a university in Yamagata Prefecture. The depth and strength of her reaction to the earthquake and tsunami is evidenced in the fact that now, four years later, she has incorporated it into this semi-fantastical animation-hybrid film.
The painting medium is obviously limited in its ability to convey spoken language. Most films consist of about 60 to 70 percent dialogue, by which the characters’ feelings and emotions are conveyed to viewers, so Kondo’s approach was to set her paintings loose in the field of film. It was actually film – old and new, Japanese and international – that taught Kondo the power of spoken language. HIKARI is the result of her bold attempt to marry film with painting.
For this exhibition, we are using gallery spaces on both the 5th and 6th floors of the Kiyosumi building. On the fifth floor we are showing 43 original oil paintings that were used in creating the film’s animation sequences, an oil portrait and a shell sculpture that both appear in the film and the painting made for the film’s flyer – bringing the total number of exhibits to 46. On the sixth floor we are showing the film itself.
Kondo is well aware of just how significant a turning point HIKARI represents in her career as a painter. The necessarily collaborative process of film-making appears to have been particularly eye-opening and beneficial.
If her paintings to date have been attempts to find love in all manner of contexts, the paintings she will make in the future seem likely to take love as an established fact, and, in seeking ways to express that, her work seems bound to enter onto a new stage.
The movie HIKARI will be shown at Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions. We encourage you to experience this exhibition and turning point for this important artist.
ShugoArts
Artist Statement of the Movie HIKARI by Aki Kondo
HIKARI, my first film work, is a short film consisting of oil painting animation and live-action footage. I see the film as a kind of letter, delivered from heaven, conveying the message that all of us living now will have the chance to “meet again” someday.
There is something that I hope to convey through the work.
Every precious life that is born into this world will someday be visited by death. When left alone after loved ones have departed, we may feel so overwhelmed that we question the very value of life. We may think it’s not worth going on.
But, as long as we are living, we are capable of experiencing any kind of emotion, and that is a wonderful thing. Even if one who was dear is visited by death, we must tell ourselves that we will meet them again someday. We who are left living cannot give up. It is this feeling itself that has the power to lead us to a new future, that can show us the way to make a present along with a past.
First there was the Big Bang, then life was born from the sea, humans appeared, becoming male and female. Thereby, an unending chain of life was set in motion that continues to this day.
And there is something else I want to convey through this film. There is a part of the human body that dies as it is born – and that is human hair. However, it is difficult for us to cognize each and every one of the countless hairs that grow to protect our heads. By depicting the limitless love that those hair cells, which don’t even cause us pain when we cut them off, have for us, I wanted people to understand how they protect us from so many different things.
Living organisms are born and die alone, and for that reason we give thanks for the love we find during the time we are alive – why we find support in things or people. I hope my film is able to convey this idea. And I hope that everyone who is alive now is able to get over the pain of losing a loved one, able to conquer the temptation to give up. Because, truth be told, we will all meet that person again someday.
February 2015
Aki Kondo
HIKARI
17 February – 7 March 2015
We are pleased to announce a new solo exhibition for Aki Kondo, where the artist will unveil the fruits of her past year’s work: a new film.
Kondo’s creative activities have to date occupied the realm of painting. Still, an awareness of aspects of her vision inexpressible in that medium prompted her to expand her practice. The new film includes not only live-action footage, but animation based on oil paintings – an indication that she still identifies herself primarily as a painter.
Kondo says she has longed for years to see her paintings spring to life, and the animated sections of the film represent the realization of that dream. Still, while she calls the new work a film, she also sees it as being inextricably linked to her regular painting practice.
One of the main motifs of HIKARI is the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. At the time of the disaster, Kondo was still a postgraduate student at a university in Yamagata Prefecture. The depth and strength of her reaction to the earthquake and tsunami is evidenced in the fact that now, four years later, she has incorporated it into this semi-fantastical animation-hybrid film.
The painting medium is obviously limited in its ability to convey spoken language. Most films consist of about 60 to 70 percent dialogue, by which the characters’ feelings and emotions are conveyed to viewers, so Kondo’s approach was to set her paintings loose in the field of film. It was actually film – old and new, Japanese and international – that taught Kondo the power of spoken language. HIKARI is the result of her bold attempt to marry film with painting.
For this exhibition, we are using gallery spaces on both the 5th and 6th floors of the Kiyosumi building. On the fifth floor we are showing 43 original oil paintings that were used in creating the film’s animation sequences, an oil portrait and a shell sculpture that both appear in the film and the painting made for the film’s flyer – bringing the total number of exhibits to 46. On the sixth floor we are showing the film itself.
Kondo is well aware of just how significant a turning point HIKARI represents in her career as a painter. The necessarily collaborative process of film-making appears to have been particularly eye-opening and beneficial.
If her paintings to date have been attempts to find love in all manner of contexts, the paintings she will make in the future seem likely to take love as an established fact, and, in seeking ways to express that, her work seems bound to enter onto a new stage.
The movie HIKARI will be shown at Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions. We encourage you to experience this exhibition and turning point for this important artist.
ShugoArts
Artist Statement of the Movie HIKARI by Aki Kondo
HIKARI, my first film work, is a short film consisting of oil painting animation and live-action footage. I see the film as a kind of letter, delivered from heaven, conveying the message that all of us living now will have the chance to “meet again” someday.
There is something that I hope to convey through the work.
Every precious life that is born into this world will someday be visited by death. When left alone after loved ones have departed, we may feel so overwhelmed that we question the very value of life. We may think it’s not worth going on.
But, as long as we are living, we are capable of experiencing any kind of emotion, and that is a wonderful thing. Even if one who was dear is visited by death, we must tell ourselves that we will meet them again someday. We who are left living cannot give up. It is this feeling itself that has the power to lead us to a new future, that can show us the way to make a present along with a past.
First there was the Big Bang, then life was born from the sea, humans appeared, becoming male and female. Thereby, an unending chain of life was set in motion that continues to this day.
And there is something else I want to convey through this film. There is a part of the human body that dies as it is born – and that is human hair. However, it is difficult for us to cognize each and every one of the countless hairs that grow to protect our heads. By depicting the limitless love that those hair cells, which don’t even cause us pain when we cut them off, have for us, I wanted people to understand how they protect us from so many different things.
Living organisms are born and die alone, and for that reason we give thanks for the love we find during the time we are alive – why we find support in things or people. I hope my film is able to convey this idea. And I hope that everyone who is alive now is able to get over the pain of losing a loved one, able to conquer the temptation to give up. Because, truth be told, we will all meet that person again someday.
February 2015
Aki Kondo