Atsuhide Ito – Fire in the Swimming Pool
Fine artist, writer & teacher, Atsuhide Ito brings his atmospheric artwork to our London gallery in his latest collaborative exhibition, Fire in the Swimming Pool.
Ito’s paintings are an attempt to move away from photographic references, and yet to grapple with the situations, in which painting is placed in the post-medium condition. His paintings are joyous and other times painful recollections of experiences in daily life.
Ito previously worked as a dustologist who collected and classified dust as matter floating between visibility and invisibility. Over time, his focus has shifted towards the undetectable and the invisible. More recently, his research is channelling towards atomic disaster tourism, in which a site and trauma of atomic disasters seduce tourists to travel to irradiated and often less accessible zones.
“The artists detect unregistered emotional experiences that are not captured in statistics.”
Laborious effort in finding matching pairs of socks but ending up in a pile of single socks illuminates poetics in the domestic labour. Similarly, the replicas of the teeth quietly provide a portrait of the artist who under stress broke his teeth. The replicas of the teeth in the process of repair retrospectively convey slow and imperceptible deterioration hidden behind the mask of everyday routines.
Sharing these sentiments in the exhibition are a selection of artists, including Brian Reed, Cristina Planas, Evan Thomas, Laura Blight, Mary Morgan and Megan Smith. They are all conscious of the ways in which the daily life is algorithmically structured and has become seemingly predictable, like a weather forecast.
However, the artists detect unregistered emotional experiences that are not captured in statistics. In this occasion, artists contribute slices of their views at the point of larger crises. Throughout the course of the exhibition, Ito and his selection of artists will work tirelessly to capture the invisible forces at play in our time.
“Throughout the course of the exhibition, Ito and his selection of artists will work tirelessly to capture the invisible forces at play in our time.”
Atsuhide Ito is a Japanese born artist and a writer who has lived in London for more than half of his life. Painting has occupied a significant place in Ito’s practice whilst he has also produced essays, films and videos, often re-enacting forgotten interviews with renowned interpretations.
