Hikari Ono

disassemble

2024

Clay stamping on paper

45.5 × 38 cm

Series of 15 works (all unique) signed, titled and dated by the artist

Price

€270.00

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The edition

disassemble consists of a series of fifteen unique stampings representing as many configurations of a single volume unfolded on a two-dimensional surface. The sculpture, with its proportions typical of Hikari Ono’s work, is literally printed on the sheet, spread out on all sides in a singular order. The still-fresh clay settles on the paper, creating a vibrant territory of hills and valleys, ridges and furrows, pits and deltas, as if the material itself contained, in microcosm, the landscapes of which it was once a part. Coming from an artist who is constantly building bridges between painting and sculpture, it is no surprise to find the mysteries and accidents of geology on the surface of the paper.

The artist

Hikari Ono was born in 1990 in Lüneburg (Germany). She currently lives in Tokyo.

Hikari Ono’s work consists mainly of small clay sculptures with minimal forms and a limited but delicate repertoire of colors; however, the apparent modesty and the obvious playfulness of these works do not hide their strong analytical ambition for long.

Through her practice of clay modeling alone, the most archaic and direct way of shaping a solid, the artist demonstrates her interest in returning to primary structures. Each piece is subject to only a few essential interventions such as laceration, grooving, crushing or spreading, and hollowing out or adding. Often these marks testify to the presence of her fingers, including their visible imprint. Ono’s works are fundamentally tactile, and not just because they are hand-sized.

What ultimately gives her pieces their ambiguity, and hence their power, is that they go beyond a strict exercise in deconstruction to dialogue with the realm of painting. The marks applied to the clay are reminiscent of a Baroque drapery or the vibrant surface of an abstract painting; they evoke Robert Ryman’s brushstroke, Lucio Fontana’s punctures or, more often than not, some other unidentified and happy pictorial invention. In this sense, although the artist is exploring the grammar of sculpture, she does so to have it speak the language of painting.

Hikari Ono is represented by XYZ Collective (Tokyo)

The exhibition

Hikari Ono's exhibition took place at Yonkai from March 3 to April 6, 2024

Exhibitions

Contact

Hikari Ono

disassemble

2024