
Aki Kondo has been painting what she wants to see since her childhood. Through painting, she has been able to encounter her imagination in the image while being moved and understanding the world simultaneously. For Kondo, painting has been a place where her heart returns. Hence, she feels uneasy when faced with a blank canvas with nothing painted on it. She wonders if she can properly depict the world she wants to see, a world that is warm and welcoming. It is a lone struggle. Kondo superimposes this process of repetition on the real world. Our hearts are suppressed by long, harsh ordeals. Still, like melting snow, the desire to meet someone deep inside our hearts someday overflows. And if we can realize and say aloud that we have been wanting to see someone, that in itself can be a great healing experience.
This exhibition consists of 19 new works, including a large 3.6-meter work. Everything that appears in her paintings, including humans, animals, plants and stuffed animals, has the desire to see someone. It can be their families, friends or the invisible or even themselves from the past or in the future.
Please enjoy new artworks by Aki Kondo whose art practice keeps evolving ever more powerfully.
Born in Hokkaido, Japan, in 1987. Lives in Sapporo. 2012 M.F.A., Tohoku University of Art and Design, Yamagata, Japan.

ShugoArts, established by Shugo Satani in 2000, values its locality, selects its artists regardless of their time and place, and sends out its activities from Tokyo.
Today, it has gotten much easier to appreciate various artworks of all times and places and their meanings, as well as spaces exhibiting artworks, need to be redefined, including contemporary art galleries. ShugoArts prioritises how to realise artists’ own growth as artists or make the most of their accomplishments. In order to nurture their abilities and possibilities, we provide our space for artists to express themselves freely and follow their artistic journeys side by side. Under any circumstances, our mission is to work and grow together with artists who ceaselessly create artworks, which shine a light on life and give it validation.
ShugoArts holds about 7 exhibitions a year and participates in national and international art fairs while simultaneously managing commissions for public spaces and organising performance and talk events. In addition, we also would like to be a part of art histories at large by creating invaluable archives and assisting art institutions.

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