ANDO GALLERY is pleased to announce "Camellia", an exhibition of new works by Aoi Sasai.

Sasai was born in Kanagawa in 1986, graduated from the Graduate School of Art and Design, Musashino Art University, with a Master's degree in Painting. In her first solo exhibition "Quercus" at ANDO GALLERY in 2012, Sasai was highly praised for her unique vision of the world, characterized by the humorously-shaped trees blowing in the wind against a grey background suggestive of disquiet. In 2013, Sasai participated in VOCA 2013 and now this young promising artist's further steps are expected.

Sasai depicts familiar trees planted by human hand such as garden trees or hedges surrounding houses. The artist says that she is inspired by the trees planted for some purpose and taken good care of, which is distinguished from wild trees. The foliage she depicts sometimes looks like someone's head or a wig, or even the tree itself gives the viewer the impression of representing a symbolized human being. It may be that her motif, planted tree, is closely related to the people's lives and is including the whiff of the inhabitants. Another characteristic of her paintings is a hazy, enigmatic space behind the trees. The brushwork in an oblique direction evokes the gusty wind blowing and the pale light flooding in the space.
What kind of place this mysterious background could be? The answer to the question will never be given. Nevertheless, what Sasai considers important is the space beyond the trees. By the eternal repetition of the same motif "trees" which stand between this world and another world, the artist tries to measure the position of the boundary between oneself and the outer world. It is a kind of a way to capture and to understand the essential features of the world.

This exhibition, Sasai's second solo-show, introduces nine new oil paintings, and three charcoal drawings on paper.

Courtesy of Ando Gallery