Berndnaut Smilde
Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde explores sacred architectures and day spaces through his photographs. Nimbus, his most acclaimed project until this day, is a series where he creates ephemeral interior clouds with vapor and a smoke machine. The phenomenon lasts no more than 20 seconds but it is kept alive through the photographic lens and its reproduction. His ephemeral sculptures emphasize time’s subjectivity and the dichotomy between lasting sculptural constructions and his transitory clouds. Smilde studied Fine Art at the Minerva Academy in Groningen, he also holds an MA from the Frank Mohr Institute. His works have been exhibited in art fairs such as Art Brussels, Bologna Art Fair, Amsterdam Art Fair and others. His first solo exhibition was held by the MOOT Gallery in Nottingham and since then his work has been showcased in Shanghai, Taipei, Washington, Lima and other cities around the globe. He took part in numerous residency programmes such as FORM in Western Australia, Irish Museum Residency of Modern Art, and so on. His work is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, Saatchi Gallery, Cornell University collection, Frans Hals Museum and more.
Nimbus Sankt Peter, 2014, digital c-type, print on aluminium, 125 x 181 cm, Ed. of 6 + 2 AP
Yutaka Endo
Founder of Luftzug, a creative collective based both in Japan and the Netherlands, Yutaka Endo is a Japanese designer who studied performing arts at the Nihon University. His works aim at uniting men, technology and ideas. Endo’s designs revolve around human experiences and the spectator’s interactions. Time’s cessation is one of the main themes explored by the designer, and to convey it he often suspends objects. Proof of this is the project Light is Time, an installation in which 65 thousand watch base plates hang from the ceiling. Endo was responsible for the lighting and the sound, the installations travelled to Milan for the city’s design week and won the prize for best sound and entertainment, the Good Design Award in Japan in 2015 and the London International Award 2015 Gold. Among other projects in which Endo participated are Neoreal Wonder, Energetic Energies, Parts to the Furniture and more. His projects have won numerous awards such as the iF communication Design award in 2014 and the Elita design award in 2011. Most of his installations are light based, he continues to develop and work in Luftzug to this day.
Asahikawa Design Week 2016 “Parts to the Furniture”
Tsuyoshi Tane
Architect Tsuyoshi Tane studied design at the university of Gothenburg and the Chalmers University in Sweden. His architectural designs are regularly made with organic materials such as wood, stone and glass. Following Frank Lloyd Wright’s style, Tane’s creations establish relationships between the environment and his constructions. Other than this, he won the competition to build the new Estonian National Museum. Furthermore, he collaborated with the Japanese artist Yutaka Endo on projects such as Light is time and Light in Water.
Rebecca Louise Law
British installation artist Rebecca Louise Law (b. 1980, Cambridge) is known for her skilful manipulation of natural materials. Encapsulating the life cycle of flora in a perfect parallelism to the decay of man, the artist presents the manifold interpretations of beauty from monumental, poetic floral cascades to still-life encasings inspired by Dutch Old Masters. Currently based in London, Law was trained in fine art at Newcastle University, England and has been exploring natural changes and preservation as an artistic practice for 20 years. Her work is at the same time an explosion of jovial, guileless emotions and a meticulous observation of our universe frozen in terms of our aesthetic perception.
Her large-scale installations inspire numerous commissions including The Flower Garden Display’d at the Garden Museum in London, The Grecian Garden at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, Outside In in Times Square, New York, The Beauty of Decay in San Francisco, as well as by major brands like Hermes, Cartier and Gucci. Law’s work has also been exhibited in public spaces like the Bikini Berlin in Germany, the Huis Ten Bosh Palace in Japan, and in museums like the Royal Academy and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The Beauty of Decay – Installation at Chandran Gallery San Francisco
Teresita Fernández
Born in Miami, Florida in 1968, Teresita Fernández is an artist whose engaging narrative immerses the spectator at the heart of our world’s natural phenomena in order to raise questions on perception and the psychology of seeing. Her prominent pubic sculptures present spectacular illusions that reimagine the landscape and the structural integrity of the place of exhibition. Fernández is best known for her unconventional use of everyday materials that positions her urban site-specific works in an ecological environment, for instance, a rock formation effect through the piercing sunlight from the perforated aluminium discs in Fata Morgana (Full Project) (2015).
The American artist is now based in Brooklyn, New York.The artist first participated and debuted her work in a group exhibition in the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, Florida entitled 30th Hortt Memorial Exhibition. Her most recent solo show at Lehmann Maupin Gallery presents a series of her new works Fire (America).Fernández’s works are enthusiastically sought after by major art collectors and museums and are part of a vast number of public collections including Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in New York, Israel Museum in Tel Aviv, LVMH Collection in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and many more.
Viñales (Subterrean), 2015, glazed ceramic, 3 panels each – photo: Elisabeth Bernstein
Hitomi Sato
Hitomi Sato (b. 1989, Shizuoka) is a Japanese artist who started her artistic career after graduating from Musashino Art University in architecture and design. By utilising the spatial illusion through special treatment of light and colour, Sato’s work awakens the essence of the different human senses. Her most notable installation, Sense of Field (2016), is a narrow walkway that is packed with optic fibre-like radiant light film. The artwork is palpable and goes beyond our known consciousness. Every movement caused by the spectator’s intervention creates a Komorebi effect, the untranslatable Japanese expression for when sunlight is filtered by the porous leaves in trees. After a year studying abroad in London, the artist is currently based in Tokyo, Japan.
Even as a young emerging artist, Sato has presented her works on various occasions since 2012 at the Water and Land Niigata Art Festival. In 2016, her work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, Japan.
Sato has also received the “Excellent award” at the 2015 Mitsubishi Junior Designers Award.
Yasuaki Onishi
Japanese multidisciplinary artist Yasuaki Onishi (b. 1979, Osaka) is best known for his deft treatment of glue. His mountainous installations are lopsided landscapes that create an unnerving sense of vertigo as if a heavy object is encumbering the spectator but at the same time, its structure is incredibly light and fragile. Onishi is concerned with demonstrating the negative space and in doing so, capturing the invisible. The artist presents usual silhouettes, sometimes undulating, frozen in mid-air like Reverse of Volume (2015), other times tempestuous, rendering the concept of volume in physical terms like Ditch of Time, Edge of Space (2016).
Onishi studied sculpture at University of Tsukuba and Kyoto City University of Arts. Since his first group exhibition at the Metal Art Museum Hikarinotani in Japan in 2002, Onishi’s work has been exhibited globally. His recent solo presentations include Reverse of Volume at Arte Sella in Italy, Vertical Volume in The Mine in Dubai, UAE and Reverse of Volume in Vida Downtown Dubai, UAE.
The artist has received many grants and awards including the Sakuyakonohana Prize, sponsorship from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and more recently, as the Art at the Heart winner by Shire of East Pilbara in Australia.
