Aiko Miyanaga – valley of sleeping sea

Mizuma Art Gallery presents a solo show by Aiko Miyanaga, titled “valley of sleeping sea”. Aiko Miyanaga, who has continued to present her works vigorously in the recent years, was awarded the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s 70th Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists in 2019, and in last year she participated in Tokyo Biennale 2020/2021, “Dialogues with the Collection: 6 Rooms” at Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art, and “The World Began without the Human Race and It Will End without It” at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and has been active both in Japan and overseas.

Miyanaga, who unexpectedly moved to Kyoto during the coronavirus pandemic, now lives in her hometown for the first time in 16 years. Her house in Kyoto is home to Miyanaga Tozan Kiln, founded by her great grandfather Miyanaga Tozan (1868 – 1941). The kiln was constructed about 110 years ago, and it is the place where many ceramic sculptures designed for Western-style rooms were created at the time when incorporating Japanese and Western architectural components into one building design were popular in the architecture of Japanese houses. Many of the plaster mold pieces were left behind in unorganized piles in the workshop at her house, and Miyanaga lived amongst the scenery of molds even throughout her childhood.

In recent years, with restrictions placed to go outside, has naturally given her more opportunities to focus on her family and the everyday things around her life, and this has opened her awareness to the existence of the plaster molds: The molds that serve as supporting role, never to be displayed as an artwork in exhibitions. She was drawn by the absence (space) that exists inside the mold, and as most of the original casted sculptures no longer exist today, she could not stop thinking about the shapes that may come out of these molds.

Miyanaga speaks: “In the end, I seem to be interested in things or time related to people. In my mind, absence is existence, and I don’t believe that absence necessary means ‘nothing’.”

Her works try to capture the absence which has been sleeping in the cavity of the mold with glass in the present time. As the empty space in the mold suddenly takes shape as a physical object and appears with weight, and it is like the past that she had never seen before suddenly appears to meet her. By donning the light and confronting the existence that contains the present, it connects the time with the past, and that leads to the new beginning.

In this exhibition, along with the glass artworks, there are also thin sculptures casted with naphthalene which are arranged as if tracing the surface layer of the mold indents, where they are finally freed from the frozen time to begin a time of new. Her works superimpose the life of people from 100 years ago and the emotions of the Tozan kiln that produced work with an inquisitive spirit and passion for Art Nouveau, with the scenes of present. It is our hope that you would come visit us and enjoy many of these aspects from the new works by Aiko Miyanaga.

ミヅマアートギャラリー では７月６日から宮永愛子展「くぼみに眠る海」を開催いたします。

近年も精力的に作品発表を続けている宮永愛子は、2019年度（第70回）芸術選奨文部科学大臣新人賞を受賞、昨年は東京ビエンナーレ2020/2021や「コレクションとの対話：６つの部屋」（京都市京セラ美術館）、「世界は人間なしに始まり、人間なしに終る」（国立台湾美術館）に参加するなど国内外で活躍しています。

コロナ禍に期せずして京都に居を移すことになった宮永は、約16年ぶりに故郷で生活することとなりました。実家は曾祖父である初代宮永東山(1868-1941)が開いた宮永東山窯。110年ほど前に築窯されました。和風住宅に洋間を設ける建築が流行した当時、その洋間にふさわしい陶彫が数多く生み出された場所でもあります。それらの大量の石膏型は、整理が追いつかないまま家の工房に山積みになって置かれ、宮永は幼い頃から型のある景色の中で生活をしてきました。

近年の外出制限のある生活で、自然と家族や身の回りの日常に目を向ける機会が増えたことは、改めてその型の存在に気づくきっかけとなりました。作品としては展示されることのない脇役としての石膏型。そこにある凹みとしての不在（空間）に惹かれ、今ではほぼ現存していない陶彫に思いを馳せる時間が流れ始めました。

結局は人にまつわるもの、人の時間に興味があるんだと思います。私のなかで不在は存在であり、不在だから「ない」とは感じません。

と語る宮永は、その型の凹みに永く眠っていた不在を、ガラスで湛え今の時間で取り出すことを試みます。型の隙間が、突如として実態のあるものとして形を成し、重さをもって現れたことは、自分の見たことのない過去が会いに来てくれたような感覚だったと言います。光を纏い、現在を内包した存在に対峙すると、過去との時間が繋がり、それが新しい始まりとなります。

本展はこれらのガラス作品と共に、凹みの表層をなぞるかのように、ナフタリンで薄く象られた彫刻が並び、留まっていた時間から解放され新しい時間を刻んでいきます。

約100年前の人々の生活や、アールヌーボーに憧れ探究心と情熱を持って制作していた東山窯の情調を今の景色に重ねた、宮永愛子の新作をぜひご高覧いただければ幸いです。

Gallery hours Tue–Sat 11.00 – 19.00
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and National Holidays

Exhibition Duration 06.07. – 06.08.2022

www.mizuma-art.co.jp

Location:
Mizuma Art Gallery
2F Kagura Bldg., 3-13 Ichigayatamachi, Shinjuku-ku
162-0843 Tokyo
Japan