Billowing Light: ISHIDA Takashi

Overview

This is the first large-scale solo exhibition devoted to the work of ISHIDA Takashi (b. 1972), an artist who has been receiving a great deal of attention in recent years in the areas of experimental film and contemporary art. 　

Ishida started out as a painter but around 1992 he began making films composed of handmade drawings shot with a stop-frame animation technique. Since then, he has won renown in the fields of experimental film and contemporary art for works like "The Art of Fugue" of 2001, an original film created at the Aichi Art and Culture Center, and "Wall of the Sea" of 2007, which was created during a residency at the Yokohama Museum of Art. 　

Drawing animation is a basic technique that Ishida uses in making his works, enabling him to move back and forth across the line between painting and moving image art. By bringing a variety of elements into the interval between these two art forms such as the body (physical action), music, and the creative environment (architecture, light, sound), he creates a chaotic artistic space that is difficult to define. 　

This exhibition is a summation of his work up to the present and a significant step in his ongoing artistic development. It includes both early and recent film/video works and two-dimensional works that have accompanied or are related to them.