Shigeko Hirakawa

Shigeko Hirakawa (滋子平川） is an artist plastician born in Kurume (Fukuoka, Japan) in 1953 and made to France in 1983. It exposes since 1980, works in a workshop of the ministry for the culture with Châtenay-Malabry.

Painter in the beginning, his work radically changed since his arrival into France in 1983. Interested in the relation between the human one and the nature which she discovered in France, she deploys installations in the open air. Little by little the crucial factors of planet, as the Water, the Air, the solar energy, the plants, etc took a dominating place in its artistic research.

When in the south of France of violent one storms destroyed on several occasions, not only its installation under development, but also of the asphalt roads, it started to think of the increasingly frequent outbursts of nature. After the storms of 1999 and the heat wave of 2003 in France, it started to create works of which the concept is very strongly related to our environmental concerns.

For example, “Air in danger” is an artistic project inspired by the report/ratio of the European Union on the European forests damaged by atmospheric pollution. It is consititué of three major elements: " Tree with photosynthèse" , " Coil aérienne" and " Molecule of Oxygène". " Tree with photosynthèse" (work carried out in France and in the USA in 2006 and 2007) has more than thousand discs equipped with a photochromic pigment reactivated by solar rays and which change color, lacteous white (the night) with purple intense (the day). These continual changes of color (according to the ambient luminosity) make it possible to visualize the Photosynthèse plants which absorb the CO2 (gas with greenhouse effect) to produce our Oxygène.

Its installations bring also a poetic aspect to the crucial question of the environment. Thus, its work “Toboggan of the Gods” (2006, overall length 66 meters, height 30 meters) refers it to the solution of the Japanese mitology to make kill the Gods on ground and reassure the human ones confronted with the brutality of nature. Ironically this brutality is aujoud' today déclanchée by human themselves and their companies centered on the profit.

Biography

1971-1975. Graduate of Tokyo Joshi Daigaku - University of Tokyo Joshi (letters and history of Japan, Tokyo) 1976-1980. Graduate of Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku - National university of the Art schools and the Music of Tokyo (oil-base paint)

1983-1986. Coed at the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of the Art schools of Paris (Workshop of Olivier Debré) (1983-1986. Stock exchange of the French government)

Realization public (public Arts and arts in the public places)

2007 " Tree with photosynthèse" : JAMAICA FLOW, exposure organized by Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in New York, the U.S.A.

2006 " Trees ailés" : realization with the assistance of the Province of Liege, Belgium within the framework of the exposure " Poétiques" spaces; (Castle of Jehay, Liege, Belgium)

2006 " Toboggan of the Dieux" : realization with the assistance of Tecomah within the framework of biennial of contemporary art " The Environmental ones, with and in the nature" (the School of the Environment and the Framework of Life, Jouy-in-Josas, France) 2003 " Connected air & Domesticated Water 2003" : transitory installation ordered by the General advice of Herault (Montepellier, France) Document: Connected air & Domesticated Water 2003

2001 " Rouge" ellipse; : purchase of work by the International University of Josai (Chiba, Japan)

1999 " Five spheres rouges" : collection of the Department of Mathematical Sciences of the University of Tokyo (Komaba, Tokyo, Japan) 1998 Town hall of Choisy-The-King. Exposure organized by the Municipal service of the Visual arts of the Town of Choisy-The-King (france)

1997 " Family tree/Mort" , " Transmutation/Vie" : realization with the assistance of the city of Mount-of-Marsan within the framework of Triennial Mount-of-Marsan sculptures catalog: Mount-of-Marsan sculptures, Japan, 1997, in-situ Creations

1992 " Float Ile" : Public order, Artistic 1% of the District council of Ile de France

Recent Personal exposures

2007 Museum of the mine of North/Pas-de-Calais " Tree with photosynthèse" (Lewarde, France)

2006 Park of the Town hall of Argenteuil " Tree with photosynthèse" , realization with the assistance of the Town of Argenteuil; catalog: Tree with photosynthesis

2005 Museum of the mine of North/Pas-de-Calais " Air, Poumon" (Lewarde, France)

2005 Gallery Parisud " Air and Water/Water-sky 2005" (Cachan, France)

2003 Park of the Castle of O " Connected air & Domesticated Water 2003" :

2001 House of Arts of Malakoff " Water Suivie" , catalogs: followed water (Malakoff, france)

2001 Town hall of Choisy-The-King " Sculptures and Peintures" , catalogs: selected works 1993-1998 (Organization by the Municipal service of the Visual arts of the Town of Choisy-The-King, france)

External bonds

site of Shigeko Hirakawa
the personal testimony of Shigeko Hirakawa

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