HIDENORI ISHII

Greener Deal

MAY 11 - JUNE 19, 2021

OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, MAY 15th, 11AM-5PM

CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR VIRTUAL EXHIBITION

C. Grimaldis Gallery is pleased to present Greener Deal, a solo exhibition of works by Hidenori Ishii. Raised in Yonezawa, Japan, Ishii creates paintings and prints that investigate personal narratives, environmental science, and global politics. Through the use of floral patterns and post-atomic materials, the artist creates connections between developing technology and the natural world.

Ishii’s MIRЯOR series explores reflection and invisibility, showing the underlying fear of living with the environmental effects of radiation. The artist has developed a language of painting that responds directly to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown. Using Kuri-coat C-720 resin, a neon-green substance sprayed at Fukushima Daiichi in an effort to resist the airborne spread of radiation, Ishii inserts content directly into his paintings through the material. He provides the viewer with a peek into his own utopia, however synthetic or destructive. Ishii’s radioactive ecosystems are also present in his On the Fence series, which further investigates the ever-developing urban landscape and all of its embedded trauma. These immersive green and blue paintings remind us of the resilience of natural flora, yet suggest an impending threat of contamination and restrictive borders.

Ishii has recently reintroduced printmaking into his practice, producing works on paper which continue in the artist’s signature style of embedding meaning into medium. Created during a Keyholder Residency at the Lower Eastside Print Shop, this series of CMYK Process Prints display abstracted fruits and vegetables inspired by 17th century Dutch Still Lifes. Low Country Renaissance paintings feature particular compositions and symbols related to global trade, bounty, and death, which lie in parallel to the artist’s relationship to fresh food sources during New York City’s shelter-in-place order due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ishii’s prints combine pixilated light (RBG), colored ink (CMYK), and abstract cropping dictated by DNA protein order (ACGT). This triad allows him to bring forth ideas of prosperity versus decomposition. Greener Deal also features work from the artist’s continuing Ekki Múkk series, which deconstructs the traditional woodwork adornment of a late 17th century Dutch cabinet attributed to Jan van Mekeren. Based on the Icelandic phrase for “quiet here,” these paintings combine burnished floral motifs with synthetic materials to render faux passage of time.

Hidenori Ishii (b. 1978 Yonezawa, Japan) earned his BFA from George Mason University (Fairfax, VA) in 2002 and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore, MD) in 2004. He has an extensive exhibition record including recent solo shows at Townsend Gallery (Water Mill, NY) and Erin Cluley Gallery (Dallas, TX), as well as notable group shows at UW Parkside Galeries (Kenosha, WI), LES Printshop (New York, NY), Colony (New York, NY), Park Place Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Octavia Gallery (Houston, TX), and Sloan Fine Art (New York, NY), among others. Ishii was granted both a Keyholder Residency at the Lower Eastside Print Shop (New York, NY) and an Ayatana Artist Research Award (Ottawa, Canada) in 2020, and participated in the New York Foundation for the Arts Mentoring Program for Immigrant Artists in 2013. This is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition at C. Grimaldis Gallery. Ishii is currently based in Queens, New York.