Mieko YUKI

BA KA SU (“Bewitch”)

October 25, 2008 - November 25, 2008

Reception: October 2, 4-8 pm

Ippodo Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of 42 ceramic sculptures by the Japanese artist and actress, Mieko Yuki. This marks Yuki’s first show in the United States. Bakasu, Japanese for “bewitch” or “enchant,” emphasizes the transformative and feminist themes central to the artist’s work. The delicate and lovingly crafted figures, which vary in size and shape from six inches to almost three feet high, often depict women in the midst of changing or concealing identities. One series of 10 figures details the metamorphosis of a fox into a woman (pictured, above right). Yuki’s ceramic women with kitchenware attached to their heads (above left) investigate the relationship between domesticity, craft, and more traditional ideas of gender.

About the Artist
Mieko Yuki was born in Tokyo to a diplomat father and artist mother. She grew up in the United Kingdom, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and Sweden, before returning to Japan as a young adult. While working as a stage actress, she began creating ceramic figures of friends and animals and a popular demand for these objects soon followed. Photographs of her work have appeared in several volumes on Japanese art and she has exhibited throughout Asia.

While in New York, Yuki will also star in an off-Broadway production of The Doll Sisters, a Japanese-language adaption of a well-known kabuki drama, at the La MaMa Experimental Theater in the East Village. Performances will run Thursday, October 23 – Sunday, November 2.

Mieko YUKI

Mieko YUKI

Mieko YUKI

Mieko YUKI