Artist Name: Ai Sugiura
Residency Dates: February – April 2024
Born: 1982
Hometown: Aichi, Japan
Lives & Works: Tokyo, Japan
URL: www.aisugiura.com/ | www.sabbaticalcompany.com/ | Instagram: @aisugiura
Education:
2007 | M.F.A, Sculpture in Fine Arts Course, Musashino Art University, Japan
2005 | B.F.A, Sculpture Course, College of Art and Design, Musashino Art University, Japan
Bio/Statement:
Ai Sugiura is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on the trivial objects of everyday life and rethinks their meaning and function. Sugiura’s artistic practice is driven by her interest in material and space, inside/outside, memory, and the transition between the ordinary and extraordinary. She observes the process of change in objects and people, and their relationship with each other in everyday life. Sugiura’s work often takes the form of sculpture and installation, and in recent years she has been incorporating photography into her three-dimensional production. A representation of this transition can be seen in her project “Plants Outside the Door,” which began in 2013 that examines the plants that line the entrances of people’s doors.
Select solo exhibitions include: Someone’s Travel, a Place I Don’t Know at Second 2., Tokyo, Japan (2021); Some Ways to Know Spring has Sprung at Si:said gallery, Klaipeda, Lithuania (2019). Select group exhibitions include: Taking a Walk Through Yokohama City at Food & Time Isetan and Wharf, Kanagawa, Japan (2021); Room and Garden The Form of Distance at Musashino Art University Museum Gallery 1, Tokyo, Japan (2020); Creative Railway at Motomachi-Chūkagai Station, Kanagawa, Japan (2020).
Sugiura’s work can be found in the permanent collections of The Swatch Art Peace Hotel and the Recreation Park at Kunneppu-cho, Hokkaido, Japan.
Since 2015, Sugiura has been part of the artist collective Sabbatical Company.
Support: Ai Sugiura’s residency is made possible with support from the Agency For Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan.
