Koichi Somaki and Aiko Miyawaki

Schedule: August. 20 [Tue.] - August. 31 [Sat.] 2024 11:00 - 19:00
※Gallery closed Sun., Mon., and national holidays.

*Click images to view in original size

We proudly present the artworks made by the two sculptors, Somaki Koichi（b. 1952）and Miyawaki Aiko (1929～2014).

Somaki Koichi studied at Tokyo Zokei University under the teachings of Katsuhiko Narita.
He created the three-dimensional object out of plywood covered in basswood veneer, later layered with a urethane coating, and lastly a polished surface. Due to his distinctive processes, his artworks possess a unique texture with a warped and bulging expression.
In 1998, he formed ABST (Abstract) with Takagi Osamu and others, and has since then held exhibitions regularly.
While creating his own works, he also worked for Miyawaki Aiko as her assistant starting in 1981.

Miyawaki Aiko studied under Abe Nobuya and Saito Yoshishige, and began creating oil paintings. From 1959 to 1966, she stayed in various Western countries and did creative activities in there.
From 1966 to the 1970s, she created three-dimensional works of brass, stone, and glass.
Her representative sculpture works, “UTSUROHI” are based on the concept of using a piano wire to draw in the sky.
Her artwork is divided in collections all over the world, including the Montjuïc Olympic Plaza (Barcelona), La Defense (Paris), and the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art.
In her later years, despite the inconvenience her fight against her disease with a wheelchair brought upon her life, her appetite for creating was never withered. She continued creating oil paintings and ink drawings.

This exhibition will feature approximately 25 works by both sculptors who also had a close relationship.

■Koichi Somaki
He was born in 1952 in Niigata prefecture. Later, he attended Tokyo Zokei University, in which he graduated in 1979 with a major in painting. He studied with Katsuhiko Narita as an auditing student at Tokyo Zokei University in 1981, and assisted Miyawaki Aiko in her production at Miyawaki Aiko’s Atelier from 1981 to 2014. From 2002 till 2006, he was a part-time lecturer at Tokyo Zokei University. Since his first solo exhibition at Shinwa Gallery (Tokyo) in 1979, he has had more than 20 solo exhibitions, including in the Gallery aM (Tokyo) in 1993, Kawasaki IBM Civic Culture Gallery (Kanagawa) in 2000, and Base Gallery (Tokyo) in 2015.

Other major group exhibitions include the "ABST" exhibition, which has been held regularly since 2001 to the present; "The 3rd Busan Biennale" (Korea) in 1985; "Poetics of Hue" at Kawasaki City Museum (Kanagawa) in 1991; "Aiko Miyawaki and Young Artists" at Museum Haus Kasuya (Kanagawa) in 2003; "Art in the Forest of Eight Colors" exhibition at Ikeda Memorial Museum of Art (Niigata) in 2018, etc. His commissions and collections include Glass Art Akasaka (1984), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (1986), Grand Boa Chiba Wing Arena (2002), B-tech Japan Bösendorfer (2013), and many others...

■Aiko MIYAWAKI
Born 1929 in Tokyo, Japan. Graduated history course at Japan Woman's University Department of Literature in 1952. Studied under Nobuya ABE and Yoshishige SAITO. Between 1957 and 1966, she produced works while she stayed in various places across the europe and the US. Her works were sculptures made of brass, stone, glass as well as oil and ink-wash paintings. Her representative sculpture "Utsurohi" is collectioned by Olmpic Plaza at Montjuic (Barcelona, Spain), La Defense (Paris, France), Nagi Museum Of Contemporary Art (Okayama, Japan) and others across the world. Although living on a wheelchair in her last days, she did not lose her creative drive, continuing to create drawings and oil paintings. Passed away on 20th August 2014 at the age of 84.

The retrospective exhibition was held at the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama and also across the globe in 1998. Miyawaki's Silkscreens and copper prints has a scent of sensitivity, tranquility and floridness. Her portrait, posing as Mona Lisa, photographed by Man RAY was turned into Silkscreen poster, designed by her husband Arata ISOZAKI. A brisk spatial fluctuation provided by "Utsurohi", made from ductile metal wire appeals Miyawaki's unique, resonant possibility of a modern art between a man and a nature.

Exhibition View

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