曽谷朝絵「宙」

ASAE SOYA “sora”

2013年11月20日(水)-12月14日(火)
20 November – 14 Desember 2013

日曜 月曜 祝日 休廊
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and National holiday

西村画廊では、2013年11月20日(水) から12月14日(土)まで、曽谷朝絵の初作品集「宙色・sora iro」の刊行（青幻舎）を記念して、個展「宙」を開催いたします。

曽谷朝絵は1974年神奈川県に生まれ、2006年に東京藝術大学大学院美術研究科油画専攻にて絵画博士号を取得しました。在学中から精力的に作品の発表を重ね、2001年に昭和シェル石油現代美術賞展でグランプリ、続けて2002年にはVOCA展で大賞を受賞し、一躍脚光を浴びます。特に、つるつるとした浴槽の質感や水面の波紋の動き、肌に心地よい蒸気、石鹸の匂いなどの身体感覚を絵画化した《Bathtub》のシリーズは高い評価を得ました。同シリーズに見られる、光に対する鋭敏な感覚をベースに色彩をどこまでも薄く重ね描き出した複雑なグラデーションと、視覚的な意味を超越し触覚や嗅覚など幅広い感覚に訴えかけ、見る者を絵画内の「心地よい場所」に取り込むインスタレーション的要素は、現在も曽谷作品の大きな特徴のひとつとなっています。

西村画廊では2007年に最初の個展「Prism」を開催。丸いバスタブの一部分をクローズアップし、光の満ちた水面の様子を色彩のグラデーションで丁寧に追求した《Circles》シリーズをはじめ、みずみずしく透き通った心地よい「空気」を具象した作品は大きく注目を集めました。近年では、絵画のみならず、カッティングシートなどから成る大規模なインスタレーションにも取り組んでいます。2013年の水戸芸術館における回顧的個展では、初の映像インスタレーション「宙・sora」を発表し、さらなる飛躍を見せました。

本展では、件の映像インスタレーション「宙」に関連する原画やスケッチなどを、未発表のものも加え多数展示いたします。 曽谷の「創造のエネルギー」が形になっていく過程の、新鮮な驚きに満ちたインスピレーションを感じていただければ幸いです。皆様のご来廊を心よりお待ちしております。

For the first time in 2 years, Nishimura gallery is pleased to present SOYA Asae’s solo exhibition “sora” from November 20 Wednesday to December 14 Saturday in the occasion of the publication of her first art book “sora iro” by Seigensha in connection with her retrospective exhibition at Art Tower Mito from this summer to autumn.

SOYA Asae was born 1974 in Kanagawa prefecture, and conferred a doctorate for painting major of Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 2006. She had painted the bathtub filled with familiar “light” since she was a student, and she won the grand prizes in the exhibition of Showa Shell Sekiyu Contemporary Art Prize 2001 and in the VOCA 2002.
Her first solo exhibition in our gallery “Prism” was held in 2007.  Like “Circles” and “Airport” series, she showed the rich and varied expressions of “light” and received increased recognition.
In 2010, the solo exhibition “Ringing” was held in the SHISEIDO Gallery, Tokyo. Under her new theme of the sound images of colors and the echo, she created the large-scale installation composing the various colored cutting sheets like wave patterns.
The solo exhibition “Swim” was held at The Obuse Museum (The Nakajima Chinami Gallery), Nagano in 2011. In the next year, she joined “New Art Exhibition NEXT vol.1 　Sparkling Days” at Yokohama Civic Art Gallery and showed her new installation “Ringing Light” visualizing the sounds to which she can listen when she feels light. She developed her expression of “light” on not only flat form like paintings but also such installations handling spaces.

Along with the said solo exhibition at Art Tower Mito, she got Yokohama Cultural Award and Kanagawa Cultural Award, the year of 2013 became a successful for her. Especially, in the solo exhibition at Art Tower Mito showing both representative and new works together, her first try of video installation “sora” was also exhibited and got high reputation.
In a space measuring 11 meters high by 9 meters square, she projected the colorful animation of flowers, woods, grasses and lights to spherical mirrors floating in the air, and reflected it to the whole of the exhibition room. It made the people feel like swimming in the forest with various colors and forms. Soya says that when she thinks to create something, “creation forest” emerges in herself and it grows rapidly. Such her “creative energy” was visualized in this installation.
In this solo exhibition, we will exhibit the original drawings for this installation mainly which were not shown at Art Tower Mito.
“As I drew, the plants that appeared started going along on their own. The ways they moved and the colors they required transcended what I had imagined. I was pulled along by them and the forest took shape”. As Soya talks in the art book, these drawings are filled with her fresh and amazing inspiration in the process of the visualization of  “creative energy”.