"Remembering Absence" by Kirk Palmer
Dates:
Thu Jan 15, 2015 18:00 - Thu Feb 26, 2015
Location:
London,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Kirk Palmer’s work explores the existential nature of human relationships with the world through an exploration of the temporal landscape and sense of place using still and moving images.
In 2005, Palmer began August Shadows, a trilogy of moving image works - Murmur (2006), Hiroshima (2007) and War's End: An Island of Remembrance (2012) - as well as photographic works, including the recent series A Surrounding Trace (2013) and Precious Fragments (2014) exhibited here. Centred upon Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Yakushima, all these works examine how historical events manifest in the present-day physical substance of place, where the pall of the atomic bombings remains a latent, unifying presence.
Palmer has returned to Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki each August as part of an evolving, personal engagement with the people and landscapes of these places devastated by the atomic bombings of World War II. These historical events are irresolvable, unfathomable, beyond comprehension, but it is exactly because of this that Palmer has pursued the awful legacies of nuclear war and its ongoing effects. Consequently, his moving and still image work eschews gratuitous imagery of the war and its after-effects in favour of nuance, not to assuage the horrors but to encourage a contemplative and reflective response from the viewer to the atomic bombing of Japan.
All his work on the subject of the atomic bombings can be understood as an attempt to 'reach' those particular places in time, because as the survivors grow more elderly and frail it is ever more pressing that we do not forget.
Exhibition:
15 January – 26 February 2015,
Admission free, Monday – Friday 9.30am-5.00pm
Private View:
15 January 2015, 6-8pm
The event is free, please RSVP at http://www.dajf.org.uk/events/booking-form
Kirk Palmer was born in Northampton, UK and trained at the Royal College of Art in London. Whilst a student he was awarded a scholarship to study in Japan at Kyoto City University of Arts, leading to an exhibition at Kyoto Art Center. He has won and been shortlisted for various art prizes, including prestigious awards from the Conran Foundation and the Elephant Trust. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally with solo shows in London and Berlin, and group shows including: Anticipation, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; In Our World: New Photography in Britain, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy; and Natural Wonders: New Art From London, Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow. Palmer’s film Hiroshima will be screened as part of Tate Modern’s Conflict, Time, Photography exhibition. He lives and works in London.
In 2005, Palmer began August Shadows, a trilogy of moving image works - Murmur (2006), Hiroshima (2007) and War's End: An Island of Remembrance (2012) - as well as photographic works, including the recent series A Surrounding Trace (2013) and Precious Fragments (2014) exhibited here. Centred upon Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Yakushima, all these works examine how historical events manifest in the present-day physical substance of place, where the pall of the atomic bombings remains a latent, unifying presence.
Palmer has returned to Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki each August as part of an evolving, personal engagement with the people and landscapes of these places devastated by the atomic bombings of World War II. These historical events are irresolvable, unfathomable, beyond comprehension, but it is exactly because of this that Palmer has pursued the awful legacies of nuclear war and its ongoing effects. Consequently, his moving and still image work eschews gratuitous imagery of the war and its after-effects in favour of nuance, not to assuage the horrors but to encourage a contemplative and reflective response from the viewer to the atomic bombing of Japan.
All his work on the subject of the atomic bombings can be understood as an attempt to 'reach' those particular places in time, because as the survivors grow more elderly and frail it is ever more pressing that we do not forget.
Exhibition:
15 January – 26 February 2015,
Admission free, Monday – Friday 9.30am-5.00pm
Private View:
15 January 2015, 6-8pm
The event is free, please RSVP at http://www.dajf.org.uk/events/booking-form
Kirk Palmer was born in Northampton, UK and trained at the Royal College of Art in London. Whilst a student he was awarded a scholarship to study in Japan at Kyoto City University of Arts, leading to an exhibition at Kyoto Art Center. He has won and been shortlisted for various art prizes, including prestigious awards from the Conran Foundation and the Elephant Trust. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally with solo shows in London and Berlin, and group shows including: Anticipation, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; In Our World: New Photography in Britain, Galleria Civica di Modena, Italy; and Natural Wonders: New Art From London, Baibakov Art Projects, Moscow. Palmer’s film Hiroshima will be screened as part of Tate Modern’s Conflict, Time, Photography exhibition. He lives and works in London.
Delirious Metropolis by Toru Ishii
Dates:
Tue May 20, 2014 18:00 - Tue May 20, 2014
Location:
London,
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Based on the subject of physicality and topicality within the delirious metropolis, Toru Ishii’s first solo exhibition in the UK aims to achieve a hybrid of expression in elements such as the past and present and the digital and analogue. He challenges how traditional art can exist in this modern age, and attempts to find a new paradigm of art by employing long-established techniques. These works are in a two-part series, Salarymen and After-image.
The first of the two-part series is Salarymen, the office workers who are a common feature in our cities and characterise today’s capitalist society. The second part, After-image, is based on current events and the everyday incidents and accidents that surround us in a modern city in the era of information technology, and here Ishii recaptures images featured in the media that viewers have retained in their memory.
Ishii’s works also raise the question of the cognitive ambiguity of the visual imagery between reality and fiction in an information-saturated world, especially after the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.
Ishii utilises the Itome Yuzen dyeing method to depict the iconography of modern society, extending the potential of this traditional art to reflect on modern subjects. Just like the Japanese print maker, Katsushika Hokusai, who portrayed the mundane customs of everyday life in Edo era, Ishii reflects on the current events and manifestation of society today, and adds an innovative value to the traditional technique of Itome Yuzen.
20 May – 15 July 2014, Free Admission,
Monday – Friday, 9:30am-5:00pm (except public holidays)
Private View: 20 May 2014, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: 17 June 2014, 6-7pm
This talk will be given by the artist and Professor Lesley Millar MBE, Director of the Anglo-Japanese Textile Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts.
Exhibition-related events are free but booking is essential.
Please book a place through our website at: www.dajf.org.uk/events/booking-form
The first of the two-part series is Salarymen, the office workers who are a common feature in our cities and characterise today’s capitalist society. The second part, After-image, is based on current events and the everyday incidents and accidents that surround us in a modern city in the era of information technology, and here Ishii recaptures images featured in the media that viewers have retained in their memory.
Ishii’s works also raise the question of the cognitive ambiguity of the visual imagery between reality and fiction in an information-saturated world, especially after the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.
Ishii utilises the Itome Yuzen dyeing method to depict the iconography of modern society, extending the potential of this traditional art to reflect on modern subjects. Just like the Japanese print maker, Katsushika Hokusai, who portrayed the mundane customs of everyday life in Edo era, Ishii reflects on the current events and manifestation of society today, and adds an innovative value to the traditional technique of Itome Yuzen.
The exhibition is supported by The Asahi Shimbun Foundation.
20 May – 15 July 2014, Free Admission,
Monday – Friday, 9:30am-5:00pm (except public holidays)
Private View: 20 May 2014, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: 17 June 2014, 6-7pm
This talk will be given by the artist and Professor Lesley Millar MBE, Director of the Anglo-Japanese Textile Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts.
Exhibition-related events are free but booking is essential.
Please book a place through our website at: www.dajf.org.uk/events/booking-form
