Akiyoshi Mishima "Elements"

Diesel Denim Gallery Aoyama

Finished

Artists

Akiyoshi Mishima

Akiyoshi Mishima is an up-and-coming young artist and a member of the art group Enlightenment. He has been involved with various creative activities such as commercial work, fine art and VJing, while also actively pursuing his solo projects. Both people in the art industry and youngsters who look forward to new art world developments have been drawn to his fertile output, which deals with borderless images created through a free hand with colors and forms.

Part of the third postwar generation in Japan, Mishima's work shows an active process of cross-cultural fusion. His creativity stems from the promiscuous absorption of various languages, histories and images from different cultures, and the virtuoso reassembly of these elements. His stance as an artist is perhaps rooted in Japan's peculiar position in the world, one that embodies possible futures in an era of globalization.

In this exhibition entitled "Elements", Mishima tackles the possibility of world integration through the ancient Chinese concept of the five elements (water defeats fire, fire defeats metal, metal defeats wood, wood defeats earth, and earth defeats water). This is an interpretative schema of the world that assigns everything a home element. By focusing on the complementary relationships between the elements, Mishima visualizes a possible world future through the use of these five symbolic motifs, creating experimental installations that embody the theory.

Schedule

Aug 30 (Sat) 2008-Nov 9 (Sun) 2008