KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of Ryoichi Fujisaki’s solo exhibition TELLUS from Saturday, December 15th, 2018.

Fujisaki has created works subliming his exceptional ability of concentration, addiction towards materials, and physicality into undiscovered expressions by exemplifying the status of those elements being multiplied, for example in his photographic works colored oil and video works metaball where he documented the spontaneous compositions of oil-based and water-based liquid; the sculpture work gypsum where he consisted accumulations of misted gypsum; and in the series MELTISM where he cut out and color-coated polyurethane foams in extraordinary smoothness.

In this exhibition, which would become his first solo exhibition in our Kiyosumi Shirakawa gallery space and two and a half years since the previous solo exhibition at our gallery, Fujisaki will exhibit a new series originated from clay, which is the medium the artist had worked on at the very starting point as an artist.

Fujisaki completed his master’s degree at the Kyoto City University of Arts, Fine Arts, Sculpture Course, which then he was making sculptures of the human body with clay. Those sculptures were not arbitrary made with his hands to reproduce an existing form, but instead, used the friction between the smooth surface of clay with water and the palms of his hands. Featuring the phenomenon of the surface of the clay being eroded, he repeated the practice at almost an unconscious state close to meditation, and distilled the form of sculptures in his own way.

In this new series titled TELLUS, which is the latin word for the earth, he further evolved this method and extracted the forms by accumulating the performance of spraying misted water to the clay. The expressions of the smoothed surface made by water, and the unnatural silhouettes created by phenomenons in the nature. Outside from factors within the artist such as addiction towards materials and physicality, in this body of work, Fujisaki would even indraft factors of the nature such as water current and wind, to elevate the expressions the artist embarked on in the earliest moments of his career.

We cordially welcome you to the opportunity to experience the new aspects of Ryoichi Fujisaki for the first time.