Hiroe Saeki

Hiroe Saeki
Dec. 22, 2007 – Jan. 26, 2008 (closed for holiday: Dec.29 – Jan.7)
Opening reception : 5 – 8 p.m. Dec. 22, 2007

Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition with Kyoto based artist Saeki Hiroe. Saeki,
born in Osaka in 1978, creates drawings with mechanical pencils and sharpened pencils on Kent paper. In recent
years, Saeki’s works exceed 150, and her expression has moved beyond the natural “bird and flower” motifs that
were often seen in her past works. In the coming exhibition, a 3 meters drawing, which consists of 4 panels, will
be exhibited along with other small and large new drawings that correspond to the gallery space.

The images in these works, reminiscent of the “bird and flower” motifs of traditional Japanese painting,
are placed against large unmarked areas of white. The intricate forms, like lotus blossoms or spiders, are
depicted in delicate drawings that seem to express Japanese taste. However, the rhythm of the decorous forms
created with the uniform lead of a sharp pencil has a graphic presence based on the premise of planar expansion.
The ambivalent fusion of Japanese taste and automatic (or self-propagating) graphic expansion seems to acquire a
kind of original expression that, unexpectedly, we have never seen before. This effect is brought about through
the consciousness and sensibility of Saeki as she draws curious natural objects emerging from the paper with
obsessive intensity.
Text by Santo Oshima (quoted from “VOCA 2006 The Vision of Contemporary Art”2006, p.121 )

Saeki received the VOCA Encouragement Prize in 2006, and her work has been featured in a group exhibition
at Meguro Museum of Art in 2007. Saeki will also participate in the group exhibition, “Artist File 2008”
at The National Art Center, Tokyo, in March 2008. Saeki’s work is included in the permanent collection of Museum
of Modern Art (New York), The UBS Art Collection (London), and the Deutsche Bank Art Collection (Frankfurt).

Taka Ishii Gallery