Yuichi HIRAKO "Greening"

9/16 (Sat.) - 10/15 (Sun.), 2017
Opening Reception : 9/16 (Sat.) 6-9pm

*We are open on Wednesday to Saturday 12-7pm, and Sunday 12-6pm during the exhibition.
*Opening reception is from 6pm to 9pm on Saturday, September 16th, and the artists will be present.
*We are open from 12pm on the opening day before the reception.
Installation View
Works
Paradise of Underground
2017
mixed media, 850 x 550 x 10 mm
Paradise of Underground
2017
mixed media, 360 x 800 x 10 mm
Nature Masks
2017
mixed media, 330 x 480 x 860 mm
PANSY (mother)
2017
mixed media, 490 x 530 x 115 mm
Mountain Princess
2017
mixed media, 450 x 560 x 200 mm
Greening
2017
mixed media, dimension variable
Press release

Tokyo, Japan – WAITINGROOM is pleased to announce Yuichi HIRAKO Solo Exhibition “Greening” from September 16th to October 15th, 2017 and it will be the third time to present the artist’s solo exhibition at our gallery. HIRAKO is an artist who mainly creates painting, but also works with many different mediums including drawing, sculpture, installation as well as sound performance, in the theme of coexistence between human and nature as well as the questions to their relationship. In this exhibition, he set the theme “Greening” which is the title of the exhibition and selected three keywords “YAMAONNA, Repose of Souls, System” for the new series. It is the artist’s new challenge to compose the exhibition with only sculptures and installation work even if his main medium is painting. In the past series, he was creating his works to research about the relationship between human and plants, city and nature, in the history, religion, fable and modern society. At this time, however, he focuses more on the relationship between human and plants in our daily living in the society, especially, home center, production green space, planters, park, flower arrangement, succulents and so on, to add more private perspective. The main piece in the exhibition is the installation work with several layers of different scenes and objects which used to exist in his painting but become more sculptural this time. Other exhibiting works are all brand new sculptures or semi-three-dimensional works as well.


Left: Solo Exhibition “Bark Feeder”, 2015, installation view, Venue: Daiichi Seimei Gallery (Tokyo)
Right: Wooden 2, 2015, mixed media, size variable

About the Artist

Yuichi HIRAKO is born in Okayama in 1982, currently living and working in Tokyo. He graduated from Wimbledon College of Art (England), Fine Art, Painting Major in 2006. In addition to Japan, he has been showing internationally in Copenhagen, Singapore, Taiwan, Rotterdam, San Francisco and many others. Recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition “Our way to the Forest” (2016, Fouladi Project, San Francisco), solo exhibition “Grafted Tree” (2015, WAITINGROOM, Tokyo), solo exhibition “The Bark of Mind” (2014, Galleri Christoffer Egelund, Copenhagen), solo exhibition “Memories of My Garden : Hidden Forest” (2012, INAX Gallery, Tokyo). HIRAKO has been receiving many awards for the past couple of years, including “Shell Art Award 2009” (Finalist Nominated), “Tokyo Wonder Wall 2010” (Tokyo Wonder Wall Prize), and “VOCA (Vision of Contemporary Art) 2013” (The VOCA Encouragement Prize).

 

More about the exhibition is coming soon…


Left: Solo Exhibition “Our way to the Forest”, 2016, installation view, Venue: Fouladi Project (San Francisco)
Right: Solo Exhibition “Grafted Tree”, 2015, installation view, Venue: WAITINGROOM (Tokyo), Photo by Ujin Matsuo

Artist
平子雄一
Yuichi HIRAKO