Upcoming...

My painting 'Sojourning #10' has been accepted to the 2012 Arts Council Juried Art Exhibit at CityArts, Wichita, KS.  The Juror was a photographer, Gerald Hill.  This is the second consecutive year that my painting has been accepted to this juried show.

CityArts
334 N. Mead St. Wichita, KS 67202
July 25 - Aug 25
Mon. - Thu.  10:00am-9:00pm
Fri.              10:00am-5:00pm
Sat.             10:00am-4:00pm
Opening reception:  July 27, 2012  5:00pm-9:00pm

Also, my work has been selected to the publication for the 2012 Winter Edition of Studio Visit Magazine from Open Studios Press.  The magazine will be distributed to 2,000 of the nation's top galleries and curators.  Also, it will be introduced online with the link to my webpage.  It's pretty exciting!

White Bird Parabola at the Diver Studio

The opening reception for the Sculpture Guild Annual Show, 'Fondle, Please' was a blast!  I enjoyed seeing a lot of people interacting with my piece and taking photos of it.  My daughter and I enjoyed touching other artists' works, too.  In case you missed it, there is going to be a closing reception.

Date:  May 10th.  5:00-9:00pm

The Diver Studio, 424 S.Commerce Street, Wichtia, KS

The title of my installation art piece is called 'White Bird Parabola'.  See more images and the artist statement here: http://chiyokomyose.com/section/306544_White_Bird_Parabola.html

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Fondle, Please Show

Upcoming show -- "Fondle, Please"    2012 Annual Sculpture Guild Show
Place:  The Diver Studio 424 S. Commerce, Wichita, KS 67202
Date:  April 27- May 10, 2012
Opening Reception:   April 27,  2012  5:00pm - 10:00pm

       Recently, I joined Sculpture Guild and am going to show my installation art piece in their annual show at the Diver Studio in downtown Wichita for this coming Final Friday.
    

The idea developed while I was working at the site.  With the help of Guild members and the staffs and house artists at the Diver studio, I was able to tackle this space with 14' high ceiling. 

Because the theme of the show is 'touchable arts' and the title is 'Fondle, Please.", I came up with the idea of this kind of 'feather balls'.   

 The work in progress

Trying different light settings

     This is the first time to show my work at S. Commerce Street which is known as Wichita's art district.  

     The Entrance of the Diver Studio

    

      There is a bus like this on the street.

     Several galleries, artists' studios, and art related companies and stores are located on this street.  It is just south of  an arena where big sport games and concerts are held.  Actually, when the planning for this arena was happening, there was a word that this Commerce Street district could be demolished and become a parking lot for this new arena.  The Commerce Street Art District Association tried to make it politically impossible by having as many art events possible.  They survived and now the Commerce Street is a thriving art district.  In evenings of Final Friday event, this street gets packed with many art gallery crawlers.  My work is going to be a part of it this time.  I am very excited!

'Hisakatano' in Insular Habitat Show

     I exhibited an installation art piece titled 'Hisakatano' in a show together with works by other five artists in the 'Alternative Media Process' class that I am auditing at WSU.

      This is a mixed media installation with lights, mirrors, paper, and thread.  The image of this work was inspired by cherry blossoms and the shoji window of a Japanese house.  I cut each petal of the cherry blossom out of the paper using an exacto knife and created another kind of flower on the floor.  The paper and their images are visible in the mirrors and their reflection are visible on the walls as well as on the papers.  This exchange continues in a loop.  I am using these effects and multiple layers of light and shadow to express my thoughts as a sojourner who keeps sending her thoughts to her original place as well as her current place.  I really like how it turned out with a lot of unexpected interesting happenings.  It works very well conceptually as well.

     The title of this piece, 'Hisakatano' is from a waka, a Japanese short poem, by Kino Tomonori from the 9th century.  The word hisakatano itself does not have a meaning, but it is a word that goes with the word 'the light'.  The poem goes like this:

Hisakatano hikarinodokeki harunohini
Shizukokoronaku hananochiruramu
ひさかたの　光のどけき春の日に
しづ心なく　花の散るらむ
It translates to:
On such a light tranquil spring day,
Why do the cherry blossoms fall like restless thoughts?

     The poem can be interpreted in several ways, but when I finished this piece, it reminded me of this poem.  I think it is a very beautiful and emotional poem.
 
     The color changes depending on different light settings although the color of the light itself is the same, just like cherry blossoms slightly change their colors depending on the time of day and the weather.

      See some more images and the artist statement here. 

http://chiyokomyose.com/section/298717_Hisakatano_Installation_3.html

     As a group exhibition, we had good variety and I think the show was pretty impressive.  Installing works together in the gallery with live webcam and watching the opening reception online were also fun.

Insular Habitat Show

I am showing an installation art piece at this show.

Insular Habitat
WSU Shiftspace Gallery
800 E. 3rd Street Wichita, KS
Wed, Fri, Sat 4-7pm
Opening reception:  Final Friday March 30th 6-10pm

Online Live Installation is going on now at
http://www.shiftspacegallery.com/
3/26 through 3/30

Six students of WSU's 'Alternative Media Process class are working on the installation art and new media works.

Come to Your Senses: Multi-Sensory Art Event Show

My Painting 'Sojourning #11' was included in this show at WSU Shiftspace Gallery for Wichita's Final Friday event in January.

                                                                                      Wall art by Keegan Rogers
WSU Shiftspace Gallery is usually for showcasing WSU students' works, but this time, it was open to artists working in the community.  The show included 'multi-sensory' works such as 2D and 3D visual works, performance, poetry reading, video, technologies, tasting cuisine, electronica, etc.

 Shiftspace Gallery has made a big makeover with the curved wall dividing the space for this show and I think this partition will enable showing more WSU students' works in the future exhibitions as well.

                                                                 Mirror installation by Seth Blume on the left
Individual works were connected by the wall drawing by Keegan Rogers which gave a sense of inviting, and unity to the show as a whole.  In front of my painting, across the walk way, a mirror installation by Seth Blume was installed.  The reflection of the mirrors with geometric square and rectangular shapes was on the wall before my painting and the fragmented images of my painting with geometric shapes were in the mirrors, which I found amusing and interactive to each other.

                                                         "Touch" interactive touch wall by John Harrison

This is a projected installation by John Harrison.  When the viewers touch the wall, the projected image was altered and moved by the sensor.

My First YouTube Video

Well, I needed to practice uploading videos to YouTube, so I made this video for my first trial.

This video is made with a series of photos that I took when I participated in an artists' residency program in Umbria, Italy, in 2009.  They are a little bit old, but very memorable for me.  I spent a couple of days in London before Italy and I took these photos from a window of an airplane from London to Rome.

Above Europe - From England to Italy

 The weather was very good and I was so excited to see the aerial views of Europe clearly as if I was looking at a map and it was totally unexpected.  Seven Sisters, the group of chalk cliffs in Southern England, is one of my favorite places in England.  I have been to this place several times, but this was the first time to see it from above.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  The English channel was narrower than I had thought.  Soon after we left England, the French coast began to appear on the right.  The city of Paris was easy to recognize with its size and the all the roads radiating out from the Arch of Triumph.  I was surprised that the snow capped tops of the Alps looked very close from the window. When my final destination, warm Italy, appeared, my heart was filled with excitement.  I wish I had more shots, but I did not think about making a video like this at the time, but still I hope people can feel the flow of the flight.  

The music is called 'Softly She Departs' by Paul Mottram.  It is from the list of YouTube's free music, so I think it is OK to use it.  It is kind of somber...  I chose this piece first, from its impression and its length and of course the title.  I don't know what the lyric writer meant with this title.  It could be death or a broken heart.  But I did not mean those things for this video.  I simply wanted to mean departure from one place.  Traveling in Europe reminds me strongly that I am a sojourner.  Even if I have a longing to stay in the place where I love, I cannot stay there forever.  A sojourner's life is like a traveler's.  I am just passing through.  It is kind of sad, but because of that, I treasure every single moment of being there.  I was thinking that kind of thing when I was looking at these aerial views.