N.E.blood21 vol 69 Aya Onodera exhibition

Solo exhibition at Rias Ark Museum of Art in Kesennuma, Japan
2019 February 9th - March 17th

“N.E.blood 21” is a series, which aims to introduce young artists from Tohoku and Hokkaido, who produced works and expressed themselves in energetic ways. Every year we host an exhibition in order to provide chances for many artists to connect with art museums, to establish new relations with other artists and to help them create a network. This 69th exhibition now features the painter Aya Onodera from Miyagi prefecture.

Onodera was born in Kesennuma in Miyagi and graduated in abstract painting at the department of art and design of Joshibi College of Art and Design. She moved to Berlin, Germany, attended regular and master classes at the Department of Fine Arts of Berlin University of the Arts and graduated there. Based in Berlin, she has been focusing on oil paintings and she has been producing various works, which gained her national and international reputation.

In order to live, humans have to breath and this is an almost unconscious act. Depending on the changes of our feeble body and soul, we are unconsciously forced to breathe, regardless if we want it or not. We breathe in, so our breath comes back into order, when we are agitated. By bringing it back into order, we try to bring our body and our soul back into its ideal balance. At that time the act of breathing, once unconscious, becomes aware, is perceived clearly and is controlled.

Onodera works every day on her paintings, as if she takes a deep breath. Fragments of memories and of emotions form layers of sediments in our unconscious, yet they are consciously stirred up by the paintbrush, where they slowly form sediments on the canvas and become paintings of the same ideal balance. So they are liberated by the mutual bonds of body and soul and they form a quiet space for breathing and, because they are made visible, they provide a quiet refuge for everyone, who is viewing the pictures.

Hiroyasu Yamauchi

Director / Chief Curator of the Rias Ark Museum of Art