NANZUKA presents the upcoming solo exhibition of new works by Ryuichi Ohira. This will be Ohira's first time exhibiting at NANZUKA.

Ryuichi Ohira was born in Tokyo in 1982, was raised in Chiba prefecture, and earned his doctorate at Tokyo University of the Arts.In addition to winning the Fumio Nanjo (Mori Art Museum Director) Prize at SICF 6th in 2005 and the Ataka Prize at the 54th Tokyo University of the Arts Graduation Works Exhibition in 2006, Ohira dedicated a statue of "Kan'nagara" to ?kunitama Shrine in 2010, participated in the large-scale solo exhibition B?ken Yar? at the Tsuruoka Art Forum in 2012, and exhibited and dedicated his piece "TONGARIMARU" at Yorishiro Project 2013 held at the world heritage site Kamigamo Shrine in 2013, showcasing his works already in a variety of modes through a number of different exhibitions and projects.

Ohira develops his works by breaking down and reassembling the non-physical, from things that affect people's automatic behaviors, to presences that have been made the subject of worship and faith from ancient times to today. His scientific review of what people perceive as the sublimity of shapes and spaces, of an unexplainable air or presence, is apparent in his works. For instance, "Belt Partition" (2005), a piece that emphasizes and reaffirms the effect of motif with a realistic replication of a partition, made out of carved and painted wood, that creates compartments and dividers;"Sanctuary" (2010), a piece in which two golden surveillance cameras carved out of wood are arranged in the manner of guardian dogs on shrine grounds, symbolically implying a sacred space; and the aforementioned piece dedicated to Kamigamo Shrine, "TONGARIMARU" (2013), in which he pursues an abstraction of the conical tatesuna (cones of sand), which are regarded as the shrine's yorishiro (a place where spirits manifest), breaking them down into two primary geometric forms―the triangle as seen from straight on and the circle as seen from above.

This exhibition will consist of an installation of small to large, flat and three-dimensional woodcarvings and sculptures. There are some charred with abstract engravings, lines carved arbitrarily during the production process, and some charred with symbolic, figurative engravings; he adopts carbonization as a method that enables him to come and go freely between the intentional and the unintentional, without being subject to chance, daring to venture to uncontrollable realms within his work. One can sense that through these experimental works he takes on the anti-art ideas that came forth from Automatism, Dada, and Fluxus, the "sacred objects" and "secular objects" written about in Mircea Eliade's books, and Walter Benjamin's concept of "aura", and pursues the question of how the ineffable beauty and sublimity spoken of within all of these arise. Ohira presents us with the world of these pieces, burnt and blackened from his experimentation, under the guise of a "magnificent view".

-NANZUKA

Image: © Ryuichi Ohira
Courtesy of the artist and NANZUKA