TARO NASU is pleased to announce Maiko Haruki’s solo exhibition “still life”.
Born in 1974, Ibaraki, Japan. Lives and works in Paris, France.
Graduated from Tamagawa University (BA), JP. Studied in Goldsmiths College, University of London (Exchange Program), UK in 1995-1996. Stayed in Paris, France for Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists 2018 (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan). Won Higashikawa Award : The New Photographer Award in 2015, Jury’s prize (Jury: Toyo Ito) of Roppongi Crossing 2007 in 2008. Recent solo exhibitions include “vision | noisiv ” (TARO NASU, Tokyo, JP) in 2017, “A certain composition of eyes ” (TARO NASU, Tokyo, JP) in 2014, “photographs, whatever they are” (1223 GENDAIKAIGA) in 2011, “unify” (Dazaifu Tenmangu, Fukuoka, JP) in 2007, group exhibitions include “Aneke Hikman, Kumi Hiroi, Tokuko Ushioda, Mari Katayama, Maiko Haruki, Mayumi Hosokura and Your Perspective” (Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, JP), “DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow Exhibition: Creating Space” (National Art Center Tokyo, Tokyo, JP) in 2021, “Higashikawa Award Winners Exhibition 2015“ (Higashikawa Bunka Gallery, Hokkaido, JP) in 2015, “1974 part1 6 Artists born in 1974” (The Museum of Modern Art Gunma, Gunma, JP), “Azamino Photo Annual” (Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa, JP) in 2014, and more.
Maiko Haruki: Still Life—Sihouettes reveal a different story
For Maiko Haruki’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, she has chosen to focus on pop culture icons in the form of around ten soft toy characters including Hello Kitty, the emblem of Japanese “kawaii culture,” and American equivalent Mickey Mouse. Haruki has taken studio portraits of these characters in the style of promotional stills of stars of the silver screen in days gone by. The silhouettes on the black and white screen give off a completely different effect to the bright, colorful images that we normally associate with these characters. They seem somehow lonely, isolated, bored even. Right now at this instant, these characters are being reborn as new products with new images and stories, and they continue to be sold and consumed throughout the world. What does their enduring existence tell us? Listen to a different story that comes from the shadows of these major icons of our consumerist society.
Haruki spent time in Paris during lockdown before returning to Japan to take part in two collective exhibitions in early 2021: “Aneke Hikman, Kumi Hiroi, Tokuko Ushioda, Mari Katayama, Maiko Haruki, Mayumi Hosokura and Your Perspective” (Shiseido Gallery, January 16 through April 18) and “DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow Exhibition: Creating Space” (National Art Center Tokyo, January 30 through March 7). She has just announced installations of new and old works at both venues.
The exhibition at TARO NASU brings together around ten entirely new works that reveal Haruki’s expanded perspective on universal truths derived from the individual, prompted by a prolonged period of self isolation spent engaging in internal dialog on her personal experience of isolation and also reflecting on the broader nature of the relationship between the individual and society.
