Born Softly

Atsuko Yamagata

16 June – 15 July 2018

Curated by 

16 June – 15 July 2018
Born Softly: Atsuko Yamagata | MO_Space

Birthing worlds

Born Softly, Atsuko Yamagata’s latest solo exhibition, presents a series of collages that evokes cellular and cosmic structures existing within and around us. Using handmade fiber, India ink, and paper threads, Yamagata creates biomorphic images that float and flow across pictorial space, resembling animated organisms caught between intervals of movement and stillness.

The artist discloses that this series expresses her current fascination with how “biosis or life itself” remains constantly in flux. Yamagata’s recent collages reflect how there is a sense of beauty to be found across many moments of birthing and creation: revealing her wonder at how incipient instances of becoming and being transcend more socially constructed categories, such as identity and nationality. The fragile transience of these encounters with life is also alluded to by including wilted fibers contained in found glass containers: a reminder that the stilled object or artifact attests to, but never fully captures, the vitality of the breathing, beating presence itself.

The media from which the collages are fashioned are materials whose possibilities Yamagata has consistently explored while based in Manila over the past years. In 2015, for instance, she experimented with handmade paper cutouts, natural pigments, and glue to explore the aesthetics of space; this also reflected an interest in responding to Japanese traditional materials. Since then, she has continued to produce a succession of works using paper, ink, and thread, which reflect her explorations in the themes of space, place, and identity as well as her appreciation for their aesthetic and material qualities. Likewise, her exploration of connection and movement is seen in her earlier explorations of live painting.

Currently, Yamagata is interested in wielding collage and abstraction to articulate a sense of beauty present across many quiet moments of creation. The resulting primordial forms—spanning scales from the microscopic cell to the vast cosmos beyond earth—point to the many spaces, places, and encounters from which life constantly flows forth.

–Lisa Ito

Exhibition Documentation

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  • Species
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    3.6' x 3.6'
    2018
  • Pain
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    2.8' x 3.8'
    2018    
  • When It was Born 1
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    3.8' x 2.8'
    2018    
  • When It was Born 2
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    3.8' x 2.8'
    2018 
  • Enfold
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Before Blowing
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Reflected Shadow
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Lives
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Shadow of Lives
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Water
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Light
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Fly
    Handmade pins paper, Indian ink, acrylic, glue, nail polish on canvas
    350 x 280 mm
    2018
  • Smokes
    Glass bottle, handmade pins paper, acrylic
    Variable dimensions
    2018
  • Slow Growing 1
    Glue, Indian ink
    Ø100 x H25 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 2
    Glue, Indian ink
    25 x 70 x 75 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 3
    Glue, Indian ink
    Ø80 x H50 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 4
    Glue, Indian ink
    30 x 70 x 70 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 5
    Glue, Indian ink
    Ø45 x H48 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 6
    Glue, Indian ink
    Ø90 x H25 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 7
    Glue, Indian ink
    25 x 75 x 75 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 8
    Glue, Indian ink
    Ø50 x H30 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 9
    Glue, Indian ink
    45 x 75 x 70 mm
    2017–2018
  • Slow Growing 10
    Glue, Indian ink
    20 x 55 x 50 mm
    2017–2018
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Video Catalogue

About the Artist

About the Artists

Atsuko Yamagata

Artist portrait courtesy of Taro Hori
Atsuko Yamagata

Atsuko Yamagata (b. 1982, Japan) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. She has started her career as a visual artist since 2006 when she lived in Tokyo. Yamagata moved to the Philippines in 2012 and her activities have expanded more and more in the art scene in Manila. She has been participating in numerous exhibitions mainly in the Philippines and also in Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore. Yamagata is basically a self-taught artist. She received B.A. Faculty of Foreign Studies in Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, especially she majored in Indonesian language as a part of cultural study of Southeast Asia. After years, she entered Musashino Art University in Tokyo to study fine arts and took some courses for a year and dropped out. In recent years, she had many solo exhibitions and joined remarkable group exhibitions such as: three solo exhibitions in 2018, Uncontrolled Artificiality at Finale Art File, Born Softly at MO_Space, and Belongingness at West Gallery; Breathing, breeding, blowout at Artinformal and borrowed scenery at Underground Gallery are both in 2017. She had another solo exhibition in her hometown Sapporo City in 2017, made roots here at Hotel Nikko Sapporo. Also, she was selected as a participating artist in Nakanojo Biennale 2017 in Gunma Prefecture (Japan) and did residence there to make artworks for the biennale.

No items found.

About the Artists

About the Artist

Atsuko Yamagata (b. 1982, Japan) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. She has started her career as a visual artist since 2006 when she lived in Tokyo. Yamagata moved to the Philippines in 2012 and her activities have expanded more and more in the art scene in Manila. She has been participating in numerous exhibitions mainly in the Philippines and also in Japan, Indonesia, and Singapore. Yamagata is basically a self-taught artist. She received B.A. Faculty of Foreign Studies in Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, especially she majored in Indonesian language as a part of cultural study of Southeast Asia. After years, she entered Musashino Art University in Tokyo to study fine arts and took some courses for a year and dropped out. In recent years, she had many solo exhibitions and joined remarkable group exhibitions such as: three solo exhibitions in 2018, Uncontrolled Artificiality at Finale Art File, Born Softly at MO_Space, and Belongingness at West Gallery; Breathing, breeding, blowout at Artinformal and borrowed scenery at Underground Gallery are both in 2017. She had another solo exhibition in her hometown Sapporo City in 2017, made roots here at Hotel Nikko Sapporo. Also, she was selected as a participating artist in Nakanojo Biennale 2017 in Gunma Prefecture (Japan) and did residence there to make artworks for the biennale.

Atsuko Yamagata

Artist portrait courtesy of Taro Hori
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