FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Please List
Maki Hajikano
“Relational Elements”
October 21st – November 14th, 2020
Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present an exhibition of new work in glass by Maki Hajikano. The exhibition & installation is entitled “Relational Elements” and is the artists’s creative response to this moment in time. The show opens October 21st and continues through November 14th, 2020. This is Maki Hajikano’s first solo exhibition with Viridian.
Maki Hajikano came to Viridian via the gallery’s annual Juried exhibit in 2018, selected by the New Museum curator, Joanna Burton. The work Burton selected was a circular installation of small droplets of rose-colored glass and the uniqueness of the work helped establish Hajikano as an outstanding Viridian Artist.
The work in this exhibition has evolved out of the series “Ambiguous Borders”, which explored through color and juxtaposition, the obscureness of boundaries between different systems, social organizations and political institutions, serving as a metaphor for the boundaries enacted upon beings of color and other marginalized people. In her recent work, she investigates human cognition and visual illusion. By utilizing multiple materials such as glass, metal, and digital images, she creates richly layered environments in her installations.
Hajikano has worked for the past 10 years using abstraction to create philosophical & politically inspired installations utilizing elements of glass, aluminum, and other materials which the artist has manipulated and composed into room-size compositions. “Relational Elements” is an inquiry into how discrete elements relate in such ways that the small units have a substantial existence and meaning in themselves, while at the same time are part of a larger system. Hajikano confesses to a fascination with such concepts that are “both fundamental at the molecular level, yet totally relevant to material existence itself and the phenomenological approach within which we navigate reality.” Hagikano uses these installations of abstract shapes to explore how our experiences affect our view of reality. This installation explores particularly the effect of the Covid-19 Lockdown on our society, as well as on our social, cultural, and personal lives.
The artist states, “The COVID-19 pestilence altered our ‘social-beingness’; lockdown brought society abruptly to [a] consciousness of what was taken for granted: that we are a fragment of a larger ‘organism’, an element that does not function well without the existential being of society. This ‘lack’ also brought to attention our own existential crises and made many to question our individual place in the world. Many felt disconnected, due to physical separation; with time this was alleviated and overcome to an extent through technology. The parts of the human-networks (both intimate and societal) were able to reclaim their relational elements to reconstruct the larger entity of social-being.”
Maki Hajikano received her MFA degree in sculpture from the University of Oregon and is currently an Associate Professor of Sculpture at York College in The City University of New York. She was awarded a residency program at the Pilchuck Glass School where she began using glass in a significant manner. She has been the recipient of several residencies, foremost of which include the Bemis Contemporary Arts, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center; she also received a Pollock–Krasner Foundation grant. She frequently exhibits her work in the U.S.A and Asia.
Sadly because of the Covid19 Lockdown, there will be no reception. The gallery will be open 12-6PM Wednesday through Saturday, but viewers are invited to make appointments to see the work and meet the artist. No more than 5 viewers will be admitted at a time, and masks are required to be worn by all.