Dates: Sep 7 – Oct 13, 2012
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoto　Opening reception: Friday, Sep 7, 18:00 – 20:00
concurrent exhibition, gallery 2: Takeshi Sakamura ( Sep 7 – 12) Hidehisa Tachibana (Sep 15 – Oct 13)

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Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoto is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Hiroe Saeki in gallery 1 from September 7 to October 13. Since her early works, Saeki has made elaborate drawings using mechanical pencils on Kent paper. The current exhibit presents Saeki’s latest drawings created with watercolors and pastels, which provide brand new textures and colorful details, in addition to the color pencils and acrylics the artist used in previous works.

Hiroe Saeki has made an elaborate drawing by accumulating innumerable fine lines. The repeated application of minute lines creates a network of folds, which produces planes and different shades of color. The accumulated lines and their fold-like units compose a plant-like object with extensions that resemble tree branches and leaves. Out of such extensions, various parasitic figures grow, with their own developments evocative of flowers and tendrils. The object assumes the look of a composite organism that, integrating heterogeneous elements, cannot be defined under a single identity.

Midori Matsui, “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” (The Japan Foundation Traveling Exhibition), Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha Co.,Ltd, 2009, p.72

Born in Osaka in 1978, Hiroe Saeki graduated from the Faculty of Fine Art, Kyoto Seika University in 2001. Making her debut at the exhibition held at Taka Ishii Gallery in 2004, Saeki won the VOCA Encouragement Prize and held her first overseas solo exhibition at Galerie Almine Rech (Paris) in 2006. After 2007, she widened her appeal with participation in group exhibitions such as, “Labyrinth of lines II – Melody with pencil and graphite”(Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo) , “Artist File 2008 : The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art” (The National Art Center, Tokyo), “NEOTENY JAPAN Contemporary Artists after 1990’s – from Takahashi Collection” (Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kagoshima, traveling to ; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sapporo, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo) ,“Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” (Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), “Art Scope 2009-2011: Invisible Memories” (Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo), etc. Her representative publications include her first artist book, “Hiroe Saeki Works” from S.O.L. (seeds of life) in 2007.
In 2010, Saeki took part in her first artist residency in Berlin through Daimler Foundation in Japan’s “Art Scope” program. In 2012, she will travel to Europe with the “Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artist” sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan.

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