JUNKO OKI

Click to view VR viewing room of the exhibition here

Through unique embroidery and careful attention, Junko Oki inserts new life into aged textiles and instruments. These objects, with years-worth of stories already engraved into them, are revived by Oki’s hand through a series of attentive stitches. In the artist’s solo exhibition anthology in the tearoom space of the Hagi Uragami Museum up to spring 2021, Oki presented an installation work including seven-thousand spools of thread gathered from throughout Japan. Each spool of thread, suspended in time since its last moment in use, was revitalized by Oki and resumed its existence within the exhibition space.

Oki’s new solo exhibition, entitled Yobitsugi, will present modified versions of works exhibited in anthology along with new, previously unexhibited artworks. In regard to the exhibition, the artist makes this statement:

This summer, I’ve been given an opportunity to exhibit once again the works that featured in my yearlong solo exhibition in the tearoom of the Hagi Uragami Museum in Yamaguchi, Japan.

As I looked upon the works which were returned to me after one memorable year, I began to want to add new impressions of time onto them. The thought of what would become of these works once I cut into them and added new stitches possessed me until I had actually materialized the idea.

Once revitalized, the works appeared as if their new and old lives were intertwined. Seeing the result freed me to walk forward afresh.

‘Yobitsugi’ is a traditional Japanese ceramic technique in which pieces of broken vessels found in the ruins of old potteries are patched together to create new work. Oki’s works, which endeavour to discover new horizons through layered impressions of time, radiate a powerful vitality, boosted by their benevolent energy and solemn tranquility.

Yobitsugi, representing something of a sequel to the artist’s exhibition anthology, will carry the narrative spun in the last exhibition on to a new being.