Opening reception: April 11, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
From April 11 through May 24, 2013.
Dina Mitrani Gallery opens Kanako Sasaki: Illuminations (how not to forget) with an artist talk on Thursday April 11th at 7:00 p.m. The exhibition, the artist’s second solo show at the gallery consists of photographic images as well as a video. During the time that the artist was beginning this recent series, the eastern coast of Japan was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami. These images are a response to the emotional loss that was caused by this natural disaster.
Sasaki’s previous series have primarily explored elements of history and narrative, usually depicting a figure re-enacting a scene or memory from the past. They evoke dream-like atmospheres, bordering between reality and fiction. In her current work, Illuminations, she continues illustrating surreal situations, yet the majority of the images are still lives, void of human figures. In a subdued color palette, they contain symbolic or ritualistic objects within mysterious compositions, creating a poetic and wondrous aesthetic. On a personal level, Sasaki was greatly affected by the 3-11 earthquake; the images in this series are her effort to preserve those memories of the places and things that were physically washed away by the disaster.
With her video piece, Sasaki explores nature and the cosmos and takes her findings to a metaphysical level. She studied numerical data calculated by the simulation astronomer, Eiichiro Kokubo at the National Observatory in Japan and combined them with digitized texts from “The Diary of Anne Frank” to create her video installation. The data shows the formation of terrestrial planets from 4.6 million years ago, and each formation is synched with emotion.
Kanako Sasaki was educated at the Royal College of Art in London and received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has had solo exhibitions in the US, Japan, Bolivia and Hungary and has been included in many international group exhibitions. She has participated in artist residencies in Iceland, Paris, Estonia, Vienna and New York and been awarded many fellowships and grants. She has also taught photography at CUNY Staten Island, NY and the International Summer School of Photography in Latvia. She will soon be attending a residency in Graz, Austria.
Dina Mitrani Gallery
2620 NW 2nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33127
786.486.7248
www.dinamitranigallery.com
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