YOD Gallery is delighted to announce "Hard to tear myself away", a solo exhibition by TAKI HIROKO featuring two new performances, workshops, photography and sculptural works.

Exposing herself in the eyes of public, her physically demanding performances are the representation of quest to search for her own identity. This exhibition will have rare opportunities for the viewers to be involved in the artist's creative process. One is by being in the space where artist performs and second is by experiencing the workshop with the artist. She says that the act of looking inward herself results to effects others, and that effect will get sent back to me as reactions to it. The performance, namely the act of search for her own identity, involves viewers by her artwork being exposed and viewers results to be the part of artwork.

Although the subject of this exhibition, her hair, is previously used subject matter, but her take on it is different this time. She has chosen the idea that hair as remains of the past, such as something her ancestors had left or represents spiritual existence. In Japanese, "hard to tear myself away" from the previous events is phrased with the word, hair, "Ushirogami Hikareru; to have one's hair pulled from behind".

Her work is not only limited to the performance, but also extends to photography and other medium. However, the most signifying work so far is in performance and seeing Kazuo Shiraga's action painting has been the catalyst. Her work also has been influenced by Norio Imai, Gutai artist, who was her tutor in the past. Yet, her purpose to chose performance as medium of expression is to represent the most actual form of being, namely, the physique as a core subject of the work, not to represent emotion or motion which is delivered by the perfomance. Her body being so out fronted in her works, often thought that the subject is insecurity toward her own body. However, her works are the positive take on her own physique, which she discovers in the process of making. You can see and experience such her discovery from the joy and amuse of her freely expressed artworks.

*image (left)
Hard to tear myself away (prov.), 2014
Inkjet, Paper, Mount board, 20.3x25.4cm
courtesy of the artist