We are delighted to present the exhibition of Rie Okamoto, “Two Sides". This will be the first time we host her exhibition at YOD gallery.
　
After completing her undergraduate study at Tama Art University and a MA in oil painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, she went back to her hometown in Nara and started making a variety of graphic and abstract two-dimensional works. In 2014, she took part in a residency programme in Spain and presented the works she made there. She has been continuously making works which stimulate the viewer’s perception and consciousness until now. This exhibition presents an installation and works which shed light on the two sides of things, using the motif of a house. 
　
A large number of house-shaped acrylic frames hung in a dark room move slowly, some of them are located inside the others. This creates trembling shades which give the viewer a feeling of floating and uncertainty. Two-dimensional works on the wall, display images of a crow and dark pond create an impression opposed to a sense of warmth or security which generally comes from images of home. Okamoto thinks that a house which is important for most of us in life is a place where life and death coexist, and she also looks at the hidden reality inside the house. Pointing out these two aspects, her works urge the visitor to have another point of view to or question ordinary perception and consciousness. 

The use of light in the works creates a cold or unstable impression which is opposed to less striking images when thinking about a house. However, one light in the darkness lights up the scenery and seems to aid will to find hope in the incisive statements of the work. This new approach might come from the changes of her mind since she started teaching at school, and it brings the visitor to a different world form ordinary world.

Two Sides

For me a house is very ordinary and for most of us it is an important place.
House involves various opposed ideas. For example, comfort and anxiousness, hope and despair and life and death. These things coexist in the place.
The front side also has a backside and they are always together, so we do not need to be afraid of them.
If the backside doesn’t exist, the front side never exists either.