Hiroko Ohno

 

HIROKO OHNO is a Brooklyn-based visual artist born in Tokyo, Japan, and received a BFA and a MFA, from Musashino Art University in Tokyo. In 2004, she moved to New York City. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions at Sanagi Fine Arts, Tokyo; Radio House Gallery, NY; Desbrosses Gallery, NY; Homma Museum and Takashimaya, Japan and in group exhibitions Outer of Orbit/Out of Orbit, Lichtundfire, NYC; NYFA50 Anniversary, NYFA’s Borderless, Lite-Haus Galerie, Berlin; El Taller Latino Americano, Implant UBS Art Gallery, NY; Silvermine Art Gallery, CT; Asian contemporary art fair NY, Susan Eley fine art, NY; Bridge art fair Miami; Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Japan and Asia Week San Francisco, CA a.o.. Collections include the University of Tokyo, Keio University, Hiratsuka Museum of Art, CUNY, QCC Art Gallery, Lyman Allyn Museum. She is a grant recipient of the Artist Summer Institute LMCC/Creative Capital, Vermont Studio Center, and the NYFA Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists.

 

My work is a philosophical inquiry into the endless questions of why the universe and the world are the way they are. It explores universal concepts such as gravity, space, and time, and questions the absurdities of the real world. Recently, I have been inspired by new discoveries about black holes. I am attempting to recreate the overwhelming experience of being in the presence of nature in a different way of seeing the unknown, beyond the humanized nature of interpretation and symbolism. As an expression of contemporary art, I use traditional Japanese Pigment made from minerals, shells, and animals compressed from earth time. The meaning is hidden in the reduction of minerals to paint galaxies and celestial bodies. These paints play an important role in expressing my concept. 

 

I place importance on the physical and perceptual aspects of my work, such as researching at my desk and seeing and painting the stars with the naked eye in nature such as Namibia, the
Sahara desert, and Quebec. This is one method of production that investigates the relationship between the body, the environment, and the universe. This is my performative element, and in today's high-tech world of convenience and quick take-it-all and-forget-it, my paintings are also an act of resistance against the modern system.

 

I painted “Galaxy Event Horizon” before mankind saw the black hole. The black hole and the Milky Way of our galaxy were superimposed to create different dimensions. The words of
Newton and Gagarin are expressed in Morse code, and the position of the earth and other planets are expressed as multiple layers of arcs with ratios based on the cosmic distance ladder from the Hubble precision stellar distance measurements to trace human memory and imagination. The minerals and salts have hidden meanings that imply time and life.

 

The piece "Galaxy I" has the message "Coronavirus Wuhan December 2019 Death 2716696" written in Morse code around an almost oval black hole in the center of the painting. The arcs inside the black hole are spaced in a ratio based on the cosmic distance ladder, a method of measuring the distance of celestial objects in the universe from Earth. The stripes of the piece "Space I" are also spaced according to the Cosmic distance ladder, which is the measurement of the distance of a celestial body in the universe from the earth.

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