House of Ice, Rite of Fire

AOTO Art is pleased to present House of Ice, Rite of Fire, a solo exhibition by Tomoko Inagaki, opening on October 10.

After studying fine art in London, Inagaki has continued to develop her practice through artist-in-residence programs in Japan and abroad. Working primarily with video-based installation, she creates situations in which the boundaries between self and other, life and death, nature and the artificial, and reality and fiction begin to blur. Since 2000, she has developed the Greenhouse series, using greenhouses made of two-way mirrors, and since 2016, the I lie series, which pairs mirrors with photographs.

For this exhibition, Inagaki presents House of Ice, Rite of Fire, a new installation in the Greenhouse series. A greenhouse is, in essence, a small, sheltered piece of nature made by human hands to nurture life. When its walls become mirrors, inside and outside, the seer and the seen, are reversed, and the space itself begins to drift away from reality. What appears in a mirror is never the truth itself. In the video, fire appears as itself, while ice emerges as a metaphor. Mourning, in turn, is presented as an act that brings an end to past deeds.

The exhibition also presents new developments in the I lie series. At Marukawa Space, next door to AOTO Art, the group exhibition Inside and Outside, featuring Inagaki, is held concurrently as a joint project with Eunoia, a gallery in Kobe, and the participating artists.

Forcing House, 2013　Photo: Yoshiro Masuda