“Tokyo Decadence” 
by Aya Ohki, Maya Nukumizu, Yuhki Touyama, and Chinatsu Takemura

Four Young Cutting Edge Artists from Japan

January 9th-February 27th 2010
Opening Party: Saturday January9th, 5-8 pm

Ten Haaf Projects is pleased to announce Tokyo Decadence, a group exhibition displaying the work of four extraordinary Japanese artists: Aya Ohki, Maya Nukumizu, Yuhki Touyama, and Chinatsu Takemura. The exhibition introduces some of the most promising emerging Japanese artists. Our selection offers an account of contemporary Japan, of its bond with the past and its anticipation of the future. The exhibition presents drawings, paintings, photographs as well as video, exploring an impressive range of subjects.

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Yuhki Touyama’s photographs are about catching the fading time, the change and emotions of that moment. This is one explanation why her photographs appear suspended in a dream-like dimension. We show her work ‘’Sasurai’’: a period in 2008 when Yuhki spent her time in Kyoto escaping Tokyo. We see Yuhki, her friends, the change of emotions and weather. The work is dealing with spiritual experiences, the recurring image being one of intimacy. Change of emotions are like the season for Touyama, they come and go like the four seasons.

The multiple levels of interpretation in Maya Nukumizu’s artworks seduce in the same way, as its visual appearance of her work focuses on women, characterised by extremely femininity. Her characters have long hair, big eyes and long eyelashes. Their appearance and provocative poses are quite common in Japanese animation and Manga. But her work openly calls into question the characteristic of Manga stereotypes, in order to propose an alternative model of Japanese women: undoubtedly fighting women, but not fighting for the pleasure of men but rather for their own right of being feminine.

Aya Ohki combines handmade drawings and watercolours, which she scans and animates with minimal digital sounds. Her artwork is a journey of discovery in which we leave our ordinary selves behind and confront a world animated by fantastical characters. Creatures that are half bird and half human, Lilliputians or gigantic female figures are the protagonists of her stories.

Chinatsu Takemura photography work is about searching and putting together fragments of everyday life. She makes pictures of people very close to her, her family and friends. Her snap shot photos are very diverse although the series on view in the gallery are about the circle of life and death.