Emi Otaguro 大田黒衣美 Water pillow of will-o’-the-wisp 不知火の水まくら2013.07.13-08.10 | 12:00-19:00 Opening Reception | 2013.07.13, 18:00- Talk Show: Tadasuke Iwanaga / Satoshi Ohno / Emi Otaguro | 2013.07.25, 19:00-Emi Otaguro weaves peculiar narratives out of mass-produced goods common in everyday life, such as chewing gums, tablecloths, and galvanized sheets. Though seemingly inhuman and anonymous today, they were originally invented by hand as “devices” to meet certain needs in particular human situations. Utilizing their potentially diverse functions or extracting their essential characteristics with additional drawings or other manipulations, Otaguro converts them into artworks.On the other hand, she also uses organic materials, such as quail egg shell for her collages. “Printed” with the mother bird’s internal pigments just before the egg is laid, and considered as a signature feature like human fingerprints because one quail can create only a certain composition, each speckled pattern functions as a camouflage to protect the egg from enemies. Interpreting it as “a landscape painting painted by each quail to reflect their external environment,” she smashes quail egg shells into fragments and composes them to create new beings.“The essential value of those supposedly inorganic objects stays the same over time. The way they exist in fact holds an encompassing nature just like those quail egg patterns,” says the artist. This statement proves how the artist carefully chooses her materials that can function as imaginative vehicles to somehow connect formless and boundless complications we embrace inside us to the outside world.In this exhibition, which marks her first solo show, the artist presents three different approaches at once ― new works made with galvanized sheets, an ongoing series with chewing gums that she has worked since 2008, and collages with quail egg shell fragments. Those works open up a variety of narratives that have possibilities to gently touch upon the underlying bases of our existence.Direction: KAYOKOYUKI | Coorporation Aoyama | Meguro | Design: CRAFTIVE Contact: KAYOKOYUKI TEL. +81(0)90-1819-1664 / info@kayokoyuki.comEmi Otaguro1980Born in Fukuoka2006Tokyo Zokei University Department of art Painting Major2008M.A Tokyo National University of Art and Music faculty of fine arts department of oil paintingSelected solo exhibitions2013“Water pillow of will-o’-the-wisp”(Aoyama | Meguro / Tokyo)2014“project N 55″(Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery / Tokyo)Selected group exhibitions2004“Outrange”(free art space PURAHA / Hokkaido)“green wind”(Ohkurayama gallery KALEN / Tokyo)“Matsu ni koromo Ume kaori Hitoha tchirinuru Shiro no nishi”(Bunpodo gallery)“KOSHIKI ART PROJECT”(Koshikijima / Kagoshima)2006“WORM HOLE episode3″(magical, ARTROOM / Tokyo)2008“Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2008″(Gyoko-dori Underground Gallery / Tokyo)2009“Mr FREEDOM X”(A plus / Tokyo)2010“NEW WORLD”(island / Chiba)“COUNTACH CARAVAN”(Gallery Ten / Ishikawa)“YON-SHIKI”(youkobo artspace / Tokyo)2011“SLASH/03 -Naively manners-“(island MEDIUM / Tokyo)“let in light curated by Kayoko Yuki”(Shinjuku Gankagarou / Tokyo)2012“Hotel Appalachia”(TALION GALLERY / Tokyo)2013“TRICK-DIMENSION”Curated by Daisuke Ohba(tolot:heuristic SHINONOME / Tokyo)Award2008Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2008 grand prize