Utako Shindo
Utako Shindo
Utako Shindo is inspired by ‘the untranslatable’ and moved to create poetic places where nuanced ‘shadow-light’ transfers into, and out of, a fertile silence. The artist employs various utsuru, or processes that reflect, project, trace, emerge and transfer. Residing and engaging with several sites in both Japan and Australia, Shindo investigates how objects embody place within the grand narrative of time.
The Works
Ode to Zephyr’s murmuring petal #1, Part 1 & 2 2018
Cyanotype prints on paper
Courtesy of the artist, with the support of Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
How it just remains, how it subsides, and how it undoes ‘I’ 2018
Single channel, moving image, with sound
Courtesy of the artist, with the support of Bundanon Trust, NSW
As it were a meteorite of the earth’s shadow #1-15 2018
Plaster relief
Courtesy of the artist, with the support of Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
Listening to Misterioso 2011-18
Single channel, moving image, with sound
Camera assistance by Alex Kershaw in 2011.
Courtesy of the artist, with the support of Sutton Gallery, Melbourne
Night Site #1-6 2018
Colour inks on Kakita paper
Courtesy of the artist, with the support of Bundanon Trust, NSW and Kawalabo! Kawara Printmaking Laboratory, Tokyo.
Images
Installation view of How it just remains, how it subsides, and how it undoes ‘I’ and Night site #1-6, 2018. Installation view courtesy of ACP and Michael Waite.
Detail of Ode to Zephyr’s murmuring petal #1, 2018
About the Artist
Currently based in Tokyo, Utako studied at Rikkyo University and has participated in many international art projects and programs. Utako has stayed for extended periods in Australia, studying at the Victorian College of the Arts before completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Ideas.
Actively exhibiting in Australia and Japan, Utako’s work has been displayed at Centre for Contemporary Photography, Margaret Lawrence Gallery and Sutton Gallery in Melbourne. In Japan her work has been exhibited at BankART Studio NYK, Yokohama; KANZAN Gallery and HAGI ART, Tokyo; and Kurumaya Museum of Art, Oyama. She has undertaken residencies at Bundanon and Bogong, in New South Wales, as well as the Arquetopia Foundation in Peubla Mexico. In 2019, Utako’s year-long research and creative project in New Mexico, USA, was supported by a Fellowship from the Agency of Cultural Affairs, Japan.