Artist : Youki Hirakawa (b. 1983)
Title : Untitled (Tear)
Medium : single channel video

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‘Untitled (Tear)’ is a video by Youki Hirakawa documenting a fallen tear drop. As time passes it shows the different phases of the shape of the tear as it dries. Through his still and installation-based video artwork, Hirakawa explores a mysterious and immeasurable sense of time, loss and longing. His imagery is imbued with a melancholic quality, reconnecting a fragile past with a vivid present casting questions over the future. He creates a form of video-poetry which summons the voice of the lost. 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.

Hirakawa is a Japanese contemporary artist born in Nagoya, Japan in 1983. He currently lives and works in Toyota, Japan, following a long residency in Berlin, Germany. He was invited to show at the ‘48th International Film Festival Rotterdam’ and ‘65th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen’ in 2019 and has held solo exhibitions internationally, including Ando Gallery, Tokyo, Double Square Gallery, Taipei, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Kunstkraftwerk, Leipzig, Minokamo City Museum, Japan. Hirakawa has also been invited to exhibit in international art festivals including Digital Art Festival Taipei 2017, International Contemporary Art Festival Kaunas in 2016, Sapporo International Art Festival 2014 and Aichi Triennale 2013. His inaugural solo exhibition ‘Secret Fire’ at Anima Mundi was held in 2016 and his follow up ‘A River Under Water’ in 2018. In 2017 he was finalist of Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Works are held in numerous public and private collections