Current Exhibition
Ryogoku
“Don't take it for granted that we're alive!”
2022
Oil, Acrylic on canvas
227.3 x 454.6cm
©Shoko Fujimori
Shoko Fujimori
"Don't take it for granted that we're alive!"
November 26 (Sat), - December 24 (Sat), 2022
Opening times: Tuesday – Saturday 11 am – 7 pm
Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and National holidays
GALLERY MoMo Ryogoku is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Shoko Fujimori entitled “Don’t take it for granted that we’re alive!” from Saturday, November 26th through Saturday, December 24th.
In the early works, Fujimori described humans covered with thin skin-like film. Regardless of the age or sex, the viewers can see internal organs and blood vessels from the skins of the portraits. Fujimori chose the motifs that she could feel something that happened around her acutely from the skin.
In another series, Fujimori challenged to employ fashion as the second skin and depicted women wearing fashionable costumes that are more like mannequins than human beings. Fujimori positively expressed fashion and SNS as communication tools by using various motifs related to fashion such as mirrors and show window glass, and images of photographs on social networking services.
According to Fujimori, she could not avoid the influence on the contents of paintings from the quarantined life due to COVID-19. Since the disease cannot approach people, her point of view shifted to herself from others. She said that it was an opportunity to reconsider communication which is her main theme, and how she could express it. In the last solo exhibition, Fujimori showed new painting series that used the theme of masterpieces that show a strong figure that confronts difficulties without giving up hope and suggest communication as the motif. She succeeded in being acquired a new expression from the masterpieces she was encouraged to and creating carefully layered ones that are the signature of Fujimori.
Witnessed the rapid changes and the social problems coming out one after another since her last solo exhibition, Fujimori was shocked by the issues of the real world as if they happen in the world of dramatic masterpieces. She has reconsidered the ordinary life in the general public. At the same time, she realized that we have lived bound by the invisible "common sense" and "ordinary" that exist in each society.
Fujimori attempt to depict the scene of the ensemble cast like a myth to free us from the values of the evaluations surrounding us. The works seem to project her own experiences, but she actually shows people who have similar experiences and issues. By depicting the personal stories with the touch of masterpieces, she tries to visualize the problems that many women face, as well as the problems that other people may have.
In that sense, Fujimori's works make viewers aware that they may be forcing their own "common sense" on others, even though they themselves are tormented by the "common sense" of others.
Shoko Fujimori was born in 1986 in Hokkaido and received her MFA from the Tokyo University of the Arts majoring in oil painting in 2013. In 2006 before she entered the university, Fujimori received the prize in Tokyo Wander Wall. She also won the prize at the 2010 Gunma Biennale for Young Artists and was nominated Sonpo Japan Art Prize in 2014.