Yuriko Sasaoka was born in Osaka prefecture in 1988. In 2014, she got a master's degree in oil painting from Kyoto City University of Arts. Now, she studies at Kyoto City University of Arts with a doctoral degree in media art. She now lives in Osaka.

Sasaoka manipulates handmade faceless puppets and records those moving image. Those images are recognized as 3D images on the computer. Then, she pastes "faces" on those 3D faceless puppets to breathe characters into puppets. This bizarre indescribable work is created by skillful combination of analog and digital technique.

In this her first solo exhibition, as a main exhibit, movie work "anima" is shown on two screens. In addition, dolls and set used in the movie work and drawings will be exhibited as an installation. You can see the production process of "the theater of balloon float" in an artist's room replicated in the gallery space.

I can see balloon floats. Seemingly, they look as if they move by their own wills. However, they are just moved by "something". Though they have no core in their body, they believe that they exist with substance body. They are just like cheap plastic bags. I patch these elements up and "balloon floats" are shaped in this way.
- Yuriko Sasaoka

*image (left)
Yuriko Sasaoka
anima, 2014
short movie
courtesy of the artist and Gallery Jin