Junko Oki is a Japanese textile artist known for her two and three dimensional stitched and embroidered works on fabric as well as for a series of artist books.
Read MoreShe started her artistic practice in the year 2002 right before turning 40. The majority of her work consists of embroidery on old fabrics (often several centuries old) that were collected by her late mother. The material used by Oki is referred to as boro, a term that may include textiles from various origins, clothing, weavings used for candle making, tatami rimmings, as well asold bags. Oki's textile compositions are rich and dense. They consist of abstract coloured thread drawings implanted like spiralling memories into fabric. The contrast between old and new textile layers signifies an elegiac distance from past ways of living, yet her palimpsest approach can equally evoke proximity. Her aesthetics are shaped by childhood memories as well as a multitude of experiences. The repetitive, manual labor of stitching and sewing, in the words of Oki, is propelled by two gravitational forces, love and death. Her work focuses primarily on human relationships, particularly those of her family and while exploring these themes, her work ranges out into automatist drawing, surrealism, poetry, art brut as well as feminist art.
Junko Oki is based in Kanagawa, Japan and had solo exhibitions at Office Baroque, Kosaku Kanechica, Shiseido Gallery, Dee's Hall and Morioka Shoten, Tokyo. Major group exhibitions include 7 Artists at Kosaku Kanechica, Tokyo (2019), Yamagata Biennale, Yamagata (2018), Nous sewing and living at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2016). Her works are included in the permanent collection of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
Text courtesy Office Baroque.
