Ai Kowada Gallelry is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Yu Akashi from Saturday, January 12th to Saturday, February 9th.

Akashi, a young and emerging artist, always attracts keen attention due to his extraordinary style and the expressive power of his works. For instance, in 2009 he won the silver grand prix prize at the "Art Award Tokyo 2008" with a work consisting of felt and sand, which was his final project at Kyoto University of Art and Design.

In recent years, Akashi has announced himself with a new method of expression in painting thinking of "noises". In his view, "noises" are what happens to be involved in the scene, such as dust on the film, or camera shake in video images. Akashi categorises visual information into two, signals and noises. Signals are the main theme. On the other hand, noises are the information that sneaks into the scene unintentionally.

It is the noise that expresses the appreciation of time, according to Akashi. He explains "a projected simple image of a skull itself has nothing to do with time. However, the noise of the projector signifies the moment you face the skull."

In this exhibition, he attempts to capture the form and mass of those "noises".

Collecting and scanning the real dust to get accurate visual images of "noise", he composed it with a skull as the main image. He also challenged himself to introduce an early photographic technique with a projector made in the 1980s.

Thus, his works with this unique method, a method so complicated that you might not guess how those works are done at first glance, would make you rethink what you see.

We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition.