Artist: Carlos Amorales - Mexico

Carlos Amorales was born in Mexico in 1970.
He studied art in Amsterdam and is now based in Mexico City.
Painting, sculpture, installation, performance, sound art,
Works that cross art and pop culture across various media such as video

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Noe Aoki - Japan

Completed a Master’s Degree in Sculpture at Graduate School of Art and Design, Musashino Art University.
Since the beginning of her career in the early ‘80s, she has been fascinated with iron as a medium. Her work is produced by repeated cutting and welding. Liberated from the concept of sculpture=mass, and the inherent solidity and weight of the material, her works transform space. She takes an in depth look at the “site”, and incorporates what is there, regardless of its visibility or invisibility, to create her own unique world. In recent years, she has also exhibited works of different materials such as plaster and glass. Her major awards are the Minister of Education's Choice: New Artist Prize, the Mainichi Arts Award, and the Teijiro Nakahara Prize.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Chen Si   -   China

Born in 1983, Chen Si is an independent illustrator and artist based in Beijing. By delivering “The Power of Adorableness” throughout his works, he tries to find a cure of tension and anxiety in the modern society.
He published the picture book The Unmovable World together with writer Dongdong Qiang and afterwards, held two solo exhibitions in Beijing. He draw illustration for the movie actor Chen Kun‘s book Gui Shui Ping Lu. Then, published a collection of personal illustration named We Are Bigger Than the Universe. In the year 2019, he founded an art gallery named " Big Art Museum" in Beijing, which devoted to provide exhibition space for young avant-garde artists to showcase their talents. At the same time, in commercial field, he continues to cooperated with famous brands in recent years.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Subodh Gupta - India

Subodh Gupta was born in 1964 in Khagaul, Bihar, India. He studied at the College of Art, Patna before moving to New Delhi where he currently lives and works. Trained as a painter, he has gone on to work with a variety of media including painting, performance, video, photography, sculpture, and installation. The artist oscillates between diverse media, collating disjointed nuggets of impressions and experiences, into a wholesome image, cast in metal, etched on a canvas, or as a recorded image. The inherently transient nature of memory builds in magnificently with the artistic urge to preserve for posterity the vestiges of what is seen, heard, felt, thought or believed. Gupta is best known for working with everyday objects that are ubiquitous throughout India, such as mass-produced stainless steel utensils, bicycles, and milk pails. From these ordinary items the artist produces works that reflect on universal issues including migration, globalization, and the cosmos. Subodh Gupta’s work exemplifies the iconography of a banal, precarious, edgy and bustling everyday life, often humungous in magnitude, blown out of proportions, peeled out of their ordinary skins by their sheer mass and volume.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Hiroshi Hara - Japan

Architect, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo.
Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1936. He researched the spatial patterns of various villages around the world and developed his own architectural theory. He received the Architectural Institute of Japan Award (Works) for the Tasaki Museum (1986) and the Murano Togo Award for Yamato International (1987).
His major works include Umeda Sky Building, the world’s first connected skyscrapers (1993), JR Kyoto Station Building (1997), Sapporo Dome (2001), and Echigo-Tsumari Exchange Center Kinare (2003). His major books are 'What is Possible in Architecture?' (1967), 'A Trip to a Village' (1987), 'Space ' (1987), and '100 Community Lessons' (1998). He received the Grand Prize of Architectural Institute of Japan Award in 2013.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Masahiro Hasunuma   -   Japan

Born in Tokyo in 1981. He was a painter and a documentary photographer. He completed his doctorate in the Department of Art Anatomy, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Currently, he is based in Aichi Prefecture.
With an interest in the autonomy of images and the wonders of dreams, he produces photographs and paintings with an emphasis on animation based on "Kinola". Major exhibitions in recent years include "The 8th New Artist Exhibition is about us." (Kawaguchi City Art Gallery Atria, Saitama, 2019), "21 th DOMANI Tomorrow Exhibition" (National Art Center, Tokyo, 2019), "something acquired by counting" (gallery N, Aichi, 2019),
"Setouchi International Art Festival" (Kagawa, Okayama, 2019/2016), and "Earth Arts Festival" (Niigata, 2015).

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro   -   Australia

Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro are Australian artists who reclaim and transform the fallout of consumer society in their practice. Combining a playful sense of humour and an engagement with art historical precedents, their work is characterised by the deconstruction and reinvention of prefabricated structures and the assemblage of accumulated objects into extraordinary sculptures and installations.
Healy and Cordeiro’s practice reflects a preoccupation with the dynamics of global mobility-the networks, standards and financial systems that enable and restrict the movement of people and goods in the modern era. Healy and Cordeiro have spent much of their artistic careers traveling. These shifting locations, and the experience of constantly moving and uprooting their lives plays a central role in their work.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Kodue Hibino   -   Japan

Born in Shizuoka Prefecture, she graduated from the Design Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts.
As a costume artist, her work has been presented in a wide variety of projects including advertising, theater, dance, ballet, film and television.
She is the director of costuming and set design for NHK Educational TV’s "Nihongo de Asobo".
She has also created costumes for many theatrical productions, including "Togitatsu no Utare, Noda Edition” Kabuki, “The Character”, "Footprint Princess" and “Faux In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom”, all written and directed by Hideki Noda. She also designed costumes for the dance performances "Circus” at the New National Theater, and "Alice in Wonderland". "LIVE BONE", "WONDER WATER", "Humanoid LADY", "FLY, FLY, FLY", "Rinne", and "Piece to Peace" performances are currently under development.
She participated in the Okunoto International Art Festival 2017, the Earth Art Festival 2018 and the Setouchi International Art Festival 2019. “60 rokuju" exhibition at Ichihara Lakeside Museum in 2018 "Dance the Ifuku in Dazaifu” costume exhibition at Tenmangu Shrine and dance performance at Kyushu National Museum in 2019. Her "Small Creatures Institute" workshops are held every month at Shibuya LOFT.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Teppei Kaneuji - Japan

Born in Kyoto in 1978, he mainly uses figures and sundries which contain everyday images.
His approach of repeating and amplifying ever-lasting reproduced information in the contemporary society has attracted attention. Connecting individual objects by ignoring their original meanings of existence contribute to vigorous expression of his artworks.

Main Exhibition
2019 Setouchi Triennale 2019 / Kagawa
2018 Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale 2018, Niigata
2018 “Summer Fiction”Art Front Gallery / Tokyo
2017 “Symbols are not Symbols” The Ueno Royal Museum / Tokyo
2016 “ZONES" Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art / Kagawa

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Kimsooja - Korea

Born in Daegu (Taegu) in 1957.
She is based in New York, Paris and Seoul. Using sound, light, and materials specific to each culture, she expresses a society in which various cultures coexist in a complex overlapping manner through a variety of mediums such as performance, video, photographs, and installations. In the past, her themes have been based on traditional Korean fabrics and sewing. In recent years, her needlework and mirrors concepts have evolved to question our existence, the world, and the great challenges we face in this era.
She has actively participated in international exhibitions such as the 5th Istanbul Biennale (1997), the Venice Biennale (1999 – 2007 years), the Yokohama Triennale in 2005, and the Busan Biennale (In 2002 and 2014). She has also recently held many solo exhibitions such as "MMCA Hyundai Motors Series 2016: KIMSOOJA – Archive of Mind" (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2016), "To Breathe" (Centre Pompidou Metz, France, 2015), etc.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Keita Mori   -   Japan

Born in Hokkaido in 1981. After graduating from Tama University of Art, he went to France. He enrolled at ENSBA-Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Artes and received a Fellowship of Overseas Study Program for Artists by the Japanese Government Agency of Cultural Affairs. He later completed his MA Fine Arts (new media) at the University of Paris VIII and is based in Paris.
In 2017, his solo exhibition “Strings” (curated by Gael Charbau) was the opening event for Drawing Lab Paris, the first French art center to specialize in contemporary drawings.

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Artist:  Satoshi Murakami   -   Japan

Born in Tokyo in 1988. He is based in Tokyo. 2011: Graduated Musashino Art University, Faculty of Art and Design, Department of Architecture.
In 2014, he started the "live in migration" project to live in a polystyrene foam house he had built himself. They're looking for ways to turn introspection into social action. His books include 'rush around the house' (2019) by Fukuinkan Shoten Co., Ltd., and 'I hurried around the house.' (2017) by Yugashobo Co., Ltd. In 2017, he stayed at Orepro (Sweden) under the overseas dispatch system of new artists by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Kayako Nakashima   -   Japan

Born in Kyoto in 1990.
In 2013, she completed the course of Western Art of Kyoto Seika University. She completed the master's course of the Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts in 2015. Using water and light as main materials, she created his works based on the relationship with the place. By actively incorporating changes into the work, it creates a tense atmosphere where space and work come together. Major exhibitions include 2019 "Fremantle Biennale" (Perth, Australia), 2019 "Fault line art festival" 2019 (Hualien, Taiwan), 2018 "Compilation of Acts and Residence 2018 Presentation Exhibition" Tokyo Arts and Space (Tokyo), 2016 "Setouchi International Art Festival" Takamijima (Kagawa), 2015 "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale Earth Arts Festival" Karekimata Shuraku (Niigata), etc.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Michiko Nakatani - Japan

In 2010, she received the VOCA Exhibition Incentive Award, and in 2012, she completed the Meisterschülerstudium program at the Dresden University of Art and Design.
Unlike general reliefs, this product produces three-dimensional works with inverted ruggedness. The image is molded with clay and molded with gypsum. The original clay is removed and a transparent resin is poured into an empty female mold. It continues to question the "absence" and "reality" of objects. In 2014, I moved to an empty house in Mie Prefecture where my grandfather lived. Every year on Respect-for-the-Aged Day, works are exhibited at the renovated factory "Omuro private art museum".

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Kenichi Obana - Japan

He was born in Gunma Prefecture. Completed the Department of Western Art of the Graduate School of Art, University of Tsukuba.
Produces 'cartoon drawing' collected from people's activities, traditions, and local landscapes. The main character of the story is a person wearing a mask and disturbing air, and the story is expressed by interweaving pictures and figures. Strolling into the exhibition space, they are searching for works that are assimilated into a story, where fiction and reality intersect. His main activities include 'expressive ecosystem' (2019: Arts Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture), 'deep in the forest,' (2018: hpgrp GALLERY TOKYO, Tokyo), 'Local Art Project Kenichi Obana' (2019: Arts Maebashi and Gunma), and 'Someday/Day/Murayama Ruriko, Hosaka Tsuyoshi, Obana Kenichi' (2018: Collaboration Akita). He won the Tokyo Midtown Award 2015 for Excellence and the LUMIN meets ART AWARD Semi-Grand Prix.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Carsten Nicolai   -   Germany

Carsten Nicolai (b. 1965) lives and works in Berlin.
Inspired by scientific reference systems, Nicolai explores mathematical patterns such as grids and codes, error and random structures, as well as the phenomenon of self-organization. In doing so, he continually breaks down the boundaries between various artistic genres.

After his participation in documenta X (1997) and the 49th and 50th Venice Biennales (2001 and 2003), his works have been presented in national and international exhibitions in renowned museums and galleries. Comprehensive solo exhibitions have taken place at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt am Main (anti reflex, 2005), Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin (syn chron, 2005), CAC Vilnius, Lithuania (pioneer, 2011), Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (unitape, 2015), Berlinische Galerie (tele, 2018) and now upcoming at K21 Düsseldorf (parallax symmetry, 2019). Carsten Nicolai’s works are included in important private and public collections.

Nicolai has received numerous awards and grants, among them: Giga Hertz Prize (2012, with Ryoji Ikeda); Villa Massimo, Rome (2007); Zurich Art Prize (2007); Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2003); Prix Ars Electronica (2000 and 2001, with Marko Peljhan); Grand Prize Japan Media Arts Festival (2014). His oeuvre echoes in his work as a musician: For his musical outputs he uses the pseudonym Alva Noto. Diverse musical projects include remarkable collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ryoji Ikeda, and Blixa Bargeld among many others. Nicolai toured extensively through Europe, Asia, South America and the US. Among others, he performed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum ofModern Art, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. Nicolai scored the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 'The Revenant’. The score was nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA, Grammy and Critics Choice Award. As well he has created the sound design for Iñárritu’s groundbreaking VR project “Carne y Arena”.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Oscar Oiwa - Brazil

Works of Oiwa, as though veiled over the surface, attract the viewers' perspective into the depth of the plane. His interest in social matters, caught at first in newspapers and articles on internet, will be visualized through elaborative research and drawing process. The finished image, sometimes grandiose and apocalyptic, depicts the life and society with his characteristic sense of humor. Born in Sao Paulo, he graduated from Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at Sao Paulo University. While working in an architectural studio in Japan where his parents are issued from, he exhibited gradually in artistic events to become an artist. Awarded the grant from Asian Cultural Council and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, he moved to New York in 2002 where he lives since then. Recently he exhibited in Brazil, USA , France, Belgium , Korea and Japan.

Main exhibition history
2019 A Journey to Light, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa / Ishikawa
2019 Setouchi International Art Festival, Ogijima Shodoshima / Kagawa (also in 2016 and 2013)
2018 To the End: Ruins of Art History , Shibuya Museum of Songdo / Tokyo
2016 The world is full of light, Art Front Gallery / Tokyo
2008 The Dreams of a Sleeping World, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist:  Alexander Ponomarev   -   Russia

Born in Dnipropetrovsk (former Soviet Union, now Ukraine) in 1957.
After graduating from the Oryol School of Art in 1973, he graduated from the Ocean Engineering School in Odessa in 1979.
While working in the Russian Navy Fleet, he produces works at sea, in the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica. Member of the Russian Academy of Arts and a French medal of art and culture.

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Artist:  RIKIGOSAN   -   Japan

RIKIGOSAN was established in 2007.
The unit is made up of Riki Kato, Godai Watanabe, and Shinichi Yamazaki. Their main purpose is to enable art to co-exist with and be of service to people.
Each exhibit locale has its own unique environment and human activities. By adopting a broad perspective in assimilating their different aspects, they intertwine various means of expression to weave a story about these intricate places. They are developing works that connect people through the power of art. 2009, ’12, ’15, ’18 “Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale”; “Setouchi Triennale” 2013; “Oku-Noto Triennale” 2017; Fujisawa Konjaku・Machinaka Art Tour 2019.

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Artist: Hiraki Sawa - Japan/England

Born in Ishikawa. Completed MFA in sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2003. Currently lives in London and Kanazawa. Sawa expresses intangible domains such as imaginary landscape or certain senses exist in memories by video installations consist of moving image, three-dimensional and two-dimensional artworks. By manipulating moving images and three-dimensional structures, Sawa realises implausible and yet familiar scene in a given exhibition space which appeal to audience’s imagination. His recent artworks attempt to intersect moving images and exhibition space each other by constructing space through sculptural arrangements of moving images or laying three-dimensional and two dimensional artworks side by side.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Simon Starling - England

Simon Starling was born in Epsom, England, in 1967. He graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, and was professor of fine arts at the Städelschule in Frankfurt from 2003 to 2013. Starling won the Turner Prize in 2005 and was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize in 2004. He represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and has had solo exhibitions at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Monash University Museum of Art in Melbourne, Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne in Vitry-sur-Seine, Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Nottingham Contemporary, Le Musée Régional d'Art Contemporain Occitanie in Sérignan, Power Plant in Toronto, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in Germany, Tate Britain in London, The Common Guild in Glasgow, and Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin. Starling lives in Copenhagen.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: SUZUPRO - Kanazawa Art and Craft University, Art Project Team

On the occasion of the Oku-Noto Triennale, the faculty and students of Kanazawa University of Art and Design formed a team that transcended the boundaries of specialization.
Based on the historical and social background of Suzu, which has developed along with the Sea of Japan, the theme of our activities is "over the quiet current". The center focuses on the creation of works in traditional Japanese houses in the Iida district of Suzu City, and throughout the year, the center participates in local festivals and traditional events in Suzu, deepening local exchange. In April 2016, we began full-scale fieldwork and conducted research on the Japan Sea. We continue our daily activities to create large-scale works that can only be expressed in Oku-Noto.

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale

Artist: Simon Vega - El Salvador

Born in El Salvador in 1972, Simon Vega graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Veracruz in Mexico in 2000 and received a Master´s degree in Contemporary Arts from the Complutense University in Madrid in 2006. Simón Vega creates drawings, objects, sculptural installations and happenings inspired in local markets, self-made-architecture and vendor carts found in the streets and beaches of Central America.
His sculptures are Third World replicas of the sophisticated capsules and satellites developed by NASA and the Soviet Space Program during the 'Space Race they comment on the effects of the Cold War in contemporary El Salvador. He has exhibited his work extensively in Europe, the United States and Latin America, including the 55th Venice Biennial in Italy (2013), the IX Havana Biennial, in Cuba (2006).

Courtesy of Oku-Noto Triennale