Youki Hirakawa 'A Candle'
Youki Hirakawa 'A Candle'
Youki Hirakawa 'A Candle’
video on monitor (33:50) . 145 x 83 x 5 cm . click to watch excerpt
Youki Hirakawa is a Japanese contemporary artist born in Nagoya, Japan in 1983. He currently lives and works in Toyota, Japan following a recent long term residency in Berlin, Germany. ‘A Candle’ is currently on show alongside 20 important and iconic works of art, by world renowned modern and contemporary artists, including Craigie Aitchison, Sir Tony Cragg, Martin Creed, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Dame Elisabeth Frink, Sir Antony Gormley, Bill Woodrow, Bruce Munro, Grayson Perry, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, Mark Wallinger, Henry Moore, Conrad Shawcross and Lynn Chadwick in the milestone exhibition 'Celebrating 800 years of Spirit and Endeavour’ marking the 800th Anniversary of Salisbury Cathedral, its largest contemporary art exhibition for nearly two decades.
Through his still and installation-based video artwork, Youki Hirakawa explores a mysterious and immeasurable sense of time, loss and longing. His monochromatic imagery is imbued with a melancholic quality, reconnecting a fragile past with a vivid present casting questions over the future. Deftly contrasting static imagery and moving footage, his work recalls its basis in frames per second, through which Hirakawa questions and in turn plays with our sense of time. Hirakawa constructs his artworks as if to reveal hidden memories or narratives contained within the subject, resuscitating sensibilities that may have since been obscured, primarily through progressive human activity. Youki Hirakawa has exhibited extensively worldwide.
His inaugural solo exhibition ‘Secret Fire’ at Anima-Mundi was held in 2016. In 2017 he was finalist of Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Works are held in numerous public and private collections. Youki Hirakawa is represented by Anima Mundi.