SAKUHO

NOW EXHIBITION 2024.12/3-2025.1/9

「昨日、野生の狸が軒下で逝去していたんです。」
Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.

今回のこの言葉は、私が実際に都心に住む知人に話した内容をそのまま展示タイトルとしました。

そのエピソードを話した知人の反応そのものが、人間と自然の境界線、野生動物と人の間にある大きな隔たりのようなものを、一匹の狸の死によって強く感じた出来事となりました。同時に、アトリエの軒下で丸まって眠るように死んだ狸は、車に弾かれるのでもなく、ただ自分の意志でここを選び、生まれて、死んだようにも感じました。

埋葬が終わり、手を合わせた瞬間、自然と涙が溢れたと同時に、幼少期に見た自身の身体に流れる血潮が蘇りました。
それは、二つの命のエネルギーが血の流れと共にコントラストを帯びて迫ってきた瞬間でもありました。

現代人が行き交う都心の一角で、生活の中に共存する生と死に眼差しを向け、脈打つ命への礼拝を体現します。

[ 作品タイトル ]
1F
・「昨日、野生の狸が軒下で逝去していたんです。」
・「Ponta Returns to the Earth」
2F
　昨日、野生の狸が軒下で逝去していたんです
・The Flame of Life Ⅰ (左)
・The Flame of Life Ⅱ (右)
3F
昨日、野生の狸が軒下で逝去していたんです
・抱擁

《Exhibition Information》
「昨日、野生の狸が軒下で逝去していたんです。」
-Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.

[ 期間 ]
2024.12.3〜2025.1.9

[ Artist ]
伊藤咲穂/Sakuho Ito
[ https://www.instagram.com/sakuho_art_activities/ ]

[ 主催 ]
anonymous art project
[ https://anonymous-collection.jp/2024-12-3-sakuho-ito/ ]
anonymous bldg.
東京都港区南青山5-1-25


展示は夜間もライトアップされ鑑賞できます。
(観覧無料、撮影OK、建物の中には入れません。歩道よりご覧いただけます。)

[ 協力 ]
Tokyo International Gallery

〒140-0002
東京都品川区東品川1-32-8 TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 2階
担当:島村、高橋
電話:03-6810-4997

——————————————————————

-EXHIBITION
“Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.”

This phrase became the title of my exhibition, drawn directly from something I shared with a friend living in the heart of the city. Their reaction to this story encapsulated the profound sense of the divide between humans and nature, as well as the chasm between wild animals and people. The death of a single tanuki brought these thoughts sharply into focus.

At the same time, the tanuki, curled up as if sleeping beneath the eaves of my studio, seemed neither to have been struck by a car nor to have met a violent end. It felt as though it had chosen this spot by its own will, as if it had lived and died entirely on its own terms.

After burying it and clasping my hands in prayer, tears welled up naturally. In that moment, memories of the blood coursing through my own body from childhood resurfaced. It was as if the energy of two lives—the tanuki’s and my own—had come into vivid contrast, pressing upon me with undeniable force.

In a corner of the bustling city, this moment became a meditation on the coexistence of life and death within our daily lives, embodying a reverence for the pulse of living things.

[ Title ]

1F
・「Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.」

・「Ponta Returns to the Earth」

2F
Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.
・The Flame of Life Ⅰ (left)
・The Flame of Life Ⅱ (right)

3F
Yesterday, a wild tanuki was found dead under the eaves.
・Hug
——————————————————————

Exhibition Period/
2024.12.3〜2025.1.9
Sakuho Ito

Venue/
anonymous bldg.
5-1-25, Minami-aoyama, Minaoku, Tokyo

Near the Omotesando intersection
1-minute walk from Omotesando Station

The exhibit is illuminated at night and can be viewed during nighttime hours.
(Free admission, photography allowed, no access to the building. Please enjoy the exhibit from the sidewalk.)

——————————————————————
statement/

伊藤咲穂は1989年に島根県で生まれ、2014年に武蔵野美術大学を卒業後、アート活動を開始。彼女は支持体として日本の文化遺産である和紙を用い、金属、土、顔料などを独自の漉き方で和紙に混ぜ込む手法を用いる。幼少期に体験した自然観、梵我一如の思想を基に、“土へ還る”という生命の循環、民族の営みから見える根源的な精神性を織り交ぜながら、抽象表現主義思想を土台とし表現を続ける。近年、自然や生命を尊ぶ神道の思想へと繋がり、“土に寄り添い、土地と人々を結ぶ”活動として、その地に滞在し採取した土や砂、文化思想を作品に取り込み、土地の生命を礼拝する作品を制作し神社などに奉納する芸術活動を行う。
2023年の出雲大社奉納作品「命の礼拝」の制作を機に、「礼拝」を生涯の表現として問いかけ続けている。

今回の展示では、伊藤のかねてからのテーマである“命の礼拝”を主軸に、最近体験した野生の狸の死と、そこから想起された自身の幼少期の体験「命の色（血潮）との出会い」から、静寂と躍動を持って「命」を表現しようと試みるものとなっており、その体験をまるで都会の知人に語りかけるような展示である。日常の一部として「命」を振り返るきっかけになることに期待を込め、死生観の象徴としての錆和紙と、生きている象徴として血を表す赤色の岩絵の具や顔料を和紙へと漉き込む。

Sakuho Ito was born in Shimane Prefecture of Japan in 1989 and began her art practice after graduating from Musashino Art University in 2014. She uses Japanese paper (washi), a cultural heritage of Japan, as her support medium, and mixes metals, soils, pigments, and other materials into the washi using her own unique method of making paper. Based on her childhood experience of nature and the philosophy of TAT TVAM ASI (the oneness of the universe and the self), she continues to express herself based on the abstract expressionist philosophy, interweaving the cycle of life “returning to the earth” and the fundamental spirituality of the life of peoples.
 
In recent years, she has been connected to the Shinto beliefs that revere nature and life, and as an activity to “connect people with the land by staying close to the earth,” she has been creating works of art to worship the life of the land by incorporating soil, sand, and cultural ideas collected while staying in the area into her artworks and dedicating them to shrines and other places. With the dedication of “Worship of Life” to Izumo-Taisha Shrine in 2023, she has continued to question “worship” as an expression of her life.

This exhibition centers on Ito’s long-standing theme of “Reverence for Life” and attempts to express “life” through both stillness and dynamism. It draws inspiration from a recent encounter with the death of a wild tanuki (raccoon dog) and the memory it evoked of Ito’s own childhood experience of encountering the color of life (the color of blood). The exhibition unfolds as though speaking to an acquaintance in the city, sharing these experiences.

With the hope of offering an opportunity to reflect on “life” as part of everyday existence, the work incorporates rust-colored washi paper as a symbol of the cycle of life and death, while embedding red pigments and mineral paints—representing blood and vitality—into the washi paper itself.

この度、伊藤咲穂は2024年10月5日(土)～12月1日(日)までホテル雅叙園東京（東京都目黒区）にて開催される「月百姿×百段階段〜五感で愉しむ月めぐり〜」に出展いたします。

本展覧会では、幕末から明治にかけて活躍し「最後の浮世絵師」とも評された月岡 芳年が月にちなんださまざまなモチーフを描いたシリーズ「月百姿」より、20点を前後期に分けて展示するとともに、現代のアーティストによる月をモチーフにした作品が登場します。
東京都指定有形文化財「百段階段」の歴史ある７つの部屋のうち、伊藤咲穂は「星光の間」にて作品を展示いたします。

[ 展覧会詳細 ]
https://www.hotelgajoen-tokyo.com/100event/tsukinohyakushi

[ EXHIBITION INFORMATION ]

夜の礼拝


私と月のつながり。

子どものころ、島根の田舎で真っ暗な中を歩き、月とお話をした。
安らぎを感じさせる、親のような存在。
こんな風になりたいと思った。それは今も変わらない。

わたしは“さびしさ”に支えられる。
さびしい気持ちが、美しいと感じる心を育んでくれるから。
さびしくなかったら、月を見ることはなかっただろう。




今回の展示では、わたしたちと月のエネルギーが呼吸し合い融合している姿や、水の御蔵（みくら）に着想を得た水の衝撃波による画面構成、そして、月から生まれる水により芽吹いた花などを独自の和紙手法で表現した新作12点を本展覧会にて展示しています。

・展覧会の作品についてのお問い合わせはこちらまでお願いいたします。
https://tokyointernationalgallery.co.jp/ja/exhibition/worship-of-the-night-jp

〒140-0002
東京都品川区東品川1-32-8 TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 2階
株式会社 Tokyo International Gallery
担当:島村、高橋
電話:03-6810-4997
Mail:https://tokyointernationalgallery.co.jp/ja/contact_jp

[WORSHIP OF THE NIGHT ]

My connection with the moon.
When I was a child, I walked in the dark in the countryside of Shimane and talked with the moon.
It gave me a sense of peace and was like a parent.
I wanted to be like that. That hasn’t changed.
I am supported by “sadness.”
It is because the feeling of loneliness nurtures a heart that feels beauty.
If I had not been so desolate, I would not have seen the moon.

In this exhibition, I used my own unique technique of washi paper to express the way the energy of the moon breathes and fuses with us, the composition of the screen with shock waves of water inspired by the water storehouse, and flowers sprouted by the water produced by the moon.

[ SAKUHO ITO ]

Sakuho Ito was born in Shimane Prefecture in 1989 and began her art practice after graduating from Musashino Art University in 2014.

Utilizing her training at a washi studio, she mixes rock paints, metals, soil, sand, and pigments together at the stage of melting kozo (paper mulberry) and then straining it to create rust washi and washi works as her own unique washi paper.

She continues to express herself as a genealogy of abstract expressionism, exploring the tranquility and transience born from the mind of calmness, a worldview of truth that she experienced as a child, and the fundamental spirituality that can be seen in the workings of a people.

In recent years, she has been connected to the Shinto beliefs that revere nature and life, and as part of his activities to “connect people with the land by staying close to the soil,” she has been creating works of art that worship the life of the land by incorporating soil and sand collected during her stays in the area into her artworks, and dedicating them to shrines.

She has continued to question the “worship” as an expression of her life since her dedication of “Worship of Life” to Izumo-taisha Shrine in 2023.

出雲大社へ作品奉納や東京都・港区の新規オープンラグジュアリーホテルにパブリックコレクションされるなど精力的に活動する伊藤 咲穂による原点ーエピソード０ーを表現

株式会社Tokyo International Gallery（品川・天王洲）では、作家・伊藤 咲穂による個展「BEGINNING of WORSHIP – First Beheld the Blue –」を開催いたします。

Exhibition / https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/88

伊藤は、自身で研究を重ねた独自の漉き方によって生まれる錆和紙により、自然を想起させる色鮮やかな作品を制作する。これまで企業とのコラボレーションによる展覧会や港区の新規オープンラグジュアリーホテルのパブリックアートとしてコレクションされるなど、活動の幅を広げている。

近年は、自然や生命を尊ぶ神道の思想へと繋がり、“土に寄り添い、土地と人々を結ぶ”活動として、その地の人々や自然と対話をしながら滞在制作に取り組む。2023年5月から約3ヶ月間の滞在を経て、出雲大社への奉納作品「命の礼拝」の制作。これを機に『礼拝』を生涯の表現として問い続け、その地で採取した土や砂を作品に取り込み、土地の生命を礼拝する作品として神社などに奉納する芸術活動を行った。

礼拝のはじまり – 青との出会い – と題した今回の展覧会では、深い青色が空間全体を包み込み、伊藤が出雲で得た「気づき」を元にエピソード0を表現する。新旧含めた伊藤の代表大作が一堂に集結する。和紙を用いた新たな表現に挑み続ける伊藤の原点となる作品を、ぜひご鑑賞いただきたい。

[ BEGINNING of WORSHIP – First Beheld the Blue – ]
昨年出雲での滞在制作が実現し出雲大社へ作品を奉納する際、私がこれまでアートとして表現して来た行為すべてが「礼拝」だったことに気づく。
そして、“Overlap”、“Water pollution” 等の粒子の集積シリーズを制作する際、強烈に惹かれた『青』。その訳が、幼少期の記憶にあったことを思い出す。
空との対話により、自身を小さな粒子へと分解し、酸素や水の粒子と溶け込ませる遊びをしていた時、初めての「色」と出会う。自分や空、取り囲む全てを包含する「青色」を手に入れる。本展示では、この「礼拝のはじまり」を懐古し、青の精神世界を表現する。

【 開催概要 】
「BEGINNING of WORSHIP – First Beheld the Blue –」
伊藤 咲穂

・会場：Tokyo International Gallery
・住所：東京都品川区東品川1-32-8
TERRADA ART COMPLEXⅡ 2F
Map / https://maps.app.goo.gl/n6oSyM5dTzpYEAc58

・開催期間：2024年4月6日（土）〜 2024年5月18日（土）
・オープニングレセプション 4月6日 (土) 17:00〜20:00
・休廊日：日曜、月曜、祝日

[ TECHNOLOGY AND ARTWORK ]

awai 淡
2023
COMPOST COLOR、楮(Paper Raw Materials)
100 × 80.3 × 2.5 cm
開発 : SHi-ZEN プロジェクト/トライポッド・デザイン株式会社(https://tripoddesign.com/)
-繊細な色の色調を愛でる感性が日本の民族性には宿っている。そんな感覚を、ドットで敷き詰めた和紙の下地と掛け合わせ、生命の分解と再結合をイメージしたプロトタイプ/ awai 淡です。

コンポストと、土(茨城)の配合により、穏やかだけどまるで違う、色の世界があります。

[ 食品残渣のコンポストと土から生まれた絵の具の可能性]
わたしたちが残した食材が、絵の具や塗料となり、電気を生み出せたなら。
そんな面白い取り組みをされている、とある日本の企業さまからご依頼いただき、作品を制作させていただきました✨
先日、有楽町で開催されたSB国際会議2023の前夜祭にて展示されました。
開発中の絵の具、塗料として、
どこで採取され、どのような経緯で材料となったのかが分かる、土と水と和紙で作るという依頼の元、子どものときの泥んこ遊びに立ち返ったような感覚となりましした。

Development : SHi-ZEN Project/Tripod Design Inc.
-The Japanese ethnicity is imbued with a sensitivity that loves delicate tones of color. This prototype/ awai(淡) is a prototype that crosses such a sense with a base of Japanese paper laid with dots and imagines the decomposition and recomposition of life.
The compost and the soil (Ibaraki) are blended to create a ambiguous color gradation but different world of color.
[The possibility of paints born from compost and soil of food residues]
What if the food we leave behind could become paints and paints, and generate electricity?
We were asked to create a work of art for a Japanese company that is working on such an interesting project.
The other day, it was exhibited at the eve of the SB International Conference 2023 held in Yurakucho.
The commission to create a piece with soil, water, and Japanese paper that shows where it was collected and how it became a material was like going back to playing in the mud when I was a child.
Organizer: SB-Tokyo.com
Sustainable Brands Japan

Movie

Greeting
Thank you for coming today to the Domain of Art 28, Sakuho Ito Solo Exhibition, “ORIGIN” at Plaza North, Saitama City. ( 2022.02~03 )

Ito Sakuho, based on the sense of tranquility derived from her childhood experiences in the natural environment, has presented two-dimensional and three-dimensional works as well as installation art using Sabi Washi (a type of Japanese paper made using Ito’s unique methods), paint, natural mineral pigments and Japanese ink at exhibitions held both in Japan and abroad.
Artwork and images created by Ito are oftentimes greatly influenced by materials of the land and the cultural climate.
In contemporary times when society calls for sustainability, these works represents beauty in “circulation”, “the process of rusting”, “decay” and “aging”; highlights emotions derived from ethnic traits; and questions coexistence between nature and humans.
In 2017, she studied under a craftsman to learn the technique for making Sekishu Washi, registered as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, and learned how to grow Kozo (paper mulberry), the raw material for making Washi. Ito, researching Washi from her undergraduate years, developed the Sabi Washi made using her unique methods.
This is often used as the primary material in Ito’s creations.
Sabi Washi is made by mixing metallic minerals with the raw materials Kozo and Mitsumata when handcrafting paper, resulting in paper with rust developing from natural oxidation being combined with fiber of Washi paper. While we may perceive the rusting process as a transition from the new to old, Ito perceives and expresses this process as the “cultivation of rust” and “a state where material has become stable”.
Ito values her connection with the raw materials used. Iron sand, an essential material for creating Sabi Washi was collected herself by the river and sea of her homeland in Shimane Prefecture, and Kozo grown in the Iwami region was used.
This exhibition presents Ito’s new works based on the theme of “tranquility”, the origin of Ito’s creations, and includes works expressing the connection and confrontation with nature through large installation arts, major two-dimensional pieces being premiered and three-dimensional pieces of a rock found at a dry riverbed near Ito’s Atelier in Yamanashi modelled using Washi paper.
Sakuho Ito has continuously challenged herself to find the value of Washi again in contemporary art as a material with its manufacturing methods being passed down from craftsman to craftsman over a period of more than 1,300 years up to the present.
Artwork which convey the passing of time, evolution, expressing the mystical tranquility of nature will prompt the viewer to think about living in harmony with nature.
This is also deeply linked with the traits of oriental spirituality and mystique found in “zen” which recently, has also seen praise overseas.
Please enjoy conversing with the artwork created.

– ORIGIN –
I believe my early childhood was supported by the loneliness of my own existence.
While spending time in nature enveloped in loneliness, sleeping in the woods and gazing up at the stars standing on the asphalt road in complete darkness, it dawned upon me as a child, that in the stillness of my surroundings, the vastness of nature, its system, the gentle connection between matters; these were the “truth of the world”.
This might have been the primitive understandings of a child, a wild dream. However, unbeknownst to myself, this sensation has probably saved me in the past, present and will continue to do so in the future.
In a country with four seasons, the trees blush with autumnal colors and soon wither away, its leaves falling to the soil below in countless layers. “Why, after all these years after my birth, does the ground not rise with fallen leaves?”
My action to find the answer to this question was simple. Whenever I had some free time, I would go to the forest, lie sprawled on the ground and enjoy observing the top soil.
Ants slowly carried away a swallowtail butterfly that died yesterday or the day before in small pieces.
Small insects less than a millimeter wriggled between the leaves and soil.
A sweet, pleasant aroma drifted above the forest floor at the end of autumn.
When I realized that the fallen leaves are taken apart by microorganisms and insects and gradually broken down returning to soil, I was filled with a deep sense of comfort knowing that this was the truth of the world.
That moment of realization was also very calm and filled with stillness.
Back then, I could not express this excitement with words.
However, such questions and discoveries about nature being connected to my works of expression today always fill my spirit with curiosity and kindness.

Sakuho ITO

[ 中川 聰 / Satoshi Nakagawa ]
Product Designer, Design Engineer,Consultant.
CEO of tripod design Co,.ltd
https://tripoddesign.com/about-us/