Keito Mitoma + Ryotaro Yamaguchi "Floating Island" （Hakari Contemporary）

Keito Mitoma + Ryotaro Yamaguchi "Floating Island"

Ends Today

Artists

Keito Mitoma, Ryotaro Yamaguchi

It is with great pleasure that Hakari Contemporary presents an exhibition of work by Keito Mitoma (b. 2001) and Ryotaro Yamaguchi (b. 1999). Both of these up-and-coming artists promise to make a significant mark in their respective fields.

Keito Mitoma creates conceptual works exploring themes such as repetition, perspective, and the movement of stillness. She employs a wide range of media including drawing, sculpture, video, installation, and performance.

Meanwhile, the ceramic artist Ryotaro Yamaguchi uses spatiality to create objects that evoke subtle yet grand narratives. In addition to sculptural works, he makes vessels and other functional items. This exhibition serves as a dialogue between contemporary art and craft, providing a glimpse into a new generation of artists’ shared perspectives of present-day society.

The title of the exhibition, Floating Island, serves as a metaphor for these perspectives as well as the themes and subject matter the artists explore in their works. The title refers to an island in a lake or swamp whose shape is altered due to a variety of factors, and at times sinks beneath the water. It also refers to a phenomenon in which distant islands or capes appear to rise above the water’s surface.

In this exhibition, floating islands symbolize the fluid and undefined in light of the fact that their very existence is vulnerable to external forces. The islands also suggest that perceiving a given thing depends on the distance and positional relationship between the seer and the seen. The exhibition examines indefinite and elusive qualities of appearance through non-convergent perceptions and thoughts.

Exhibition curator Muu Tanimura (b. 1998) primary focus is on artists’ means of production and methods of showing their works. He also has an interest in the motivations and ideas behind their creations. For this exhibition, Tanimura worked closely with the artists from the planning stage, and remained in close contact with them to carefully discern their similarities and differences. This process ultimately led to the exhibition title.

In this exhibition, emerging artists and a curator strive to convey a vision of the future from Hakari Contemporary.