Installation view at Fou Gallery, 2024. Photography by Ken Lee, courtesy of Fou Gallery.

(New York—June 8, 2024)  Drawing from her experience of living in Tokyo and throughout the pandemic in New York, Okubo turns to life within a family structure and weaves a narrative that explores the concept of "home” in her paintings, glass sculptures, sewing work, and installations. The richness and excess in patterns and colors are no doubt mesmerizing, but it is this diffusion of focal points that highlights the artist’s myriad senses and emotions tied to home.

Whether depicting a house on fire, hands kneading bread, or lush botany thriving within enclosed greenhouses, Okubo’s exquisitely composed paintings are all inspired by her interest and experiences related to the domestic environment. She often places her portraits in such fantastical renderings of “closely glazed spaces" hidden amongst beautiful embellishments. The multifaceted and ambiguous representation of home, however, is precisely what Okubo aims to convey through her works—the paradoxical existence of socially constructed ties within the supposedly safe confines of home. Rather than employing direct expressions, Okubo embedded messages in various works in this exhibition, reflecting the reality of how various social and political issues can be buried within society.

Particularly her practice of sewing—present in her work as both work medium and motif—represents her dualistic perspective. Recognizing how stitchwork had historically tied women to their domestic sphere but also provided the means for independence and expression, Okubo opens our eyes to the multiple meanings that underlie such familiar work. Her recent works, on view for the first time, allude to issues of gender, family, and society through striking imagery and needlecraft. 

Through the labor of sewing, Okubo channels her inner reflections into the creation of miniature dolls. The dolls, one of which even represents her mother, embody Okubo's familial ties and a longing for belonging. She employs dolls made of clay as a mold to cast intricate glass sculptures. The transparency of the glass imbues her creations with an ethereal quality and speaks about the intangible aspects of human experience — the unsaid, the hidden, and the subconscious. Through a translation of two mediums, Okubo creates a dialogue between form and materiality, and captures the essence of what lies beneath the surface. Each glass casting becomes a vessel for untold stories, inviting viewers to contemplate the hidden layers of their own psyche.

This time at the Fou Gallery, Okubo presents her latest work that resounds with the gallery space itself, a historical brownstone townhouse complex that has housed many generations of Brooklyn residents. Playing with interior details and perspective, Okubo’s oeuvre initiates intimate conversations between place and people. Her intervention further expands to the exterior garden, physically and conceptually extending her dialogue beyond the gallery space. Okubo’s work invites us to explore what a home can mean for us at a personal level and in the context of the tumultuous world.

Guest curator: Sharon Xiaorong Liu, Hanna Hirakawa

Courtesy, Photo and Translation: GALLERY MoMo

When I sew prickly, I am reminded of my childhood.

I had been taught to cook and sew at home since I was a child. For a while, all I had in my school bag was a sewing kit, and neither of these things bothered me. However, when I recall being forced to wear girly clothes and being severely scolded for cutting my hair short because it looked like a boy's, I now think that there must have been an unconscious intention to teach me these things. When I realized this, I felt bewildered.

Sewing has kept women tied to their homes for a long time, but at the same time, the acquisition of skills has given them the power to be independent, and needlework has been one of the few means of expression.

In recent years, "handicrafts," which have become peripheral, have come into the spotlight, and people's complex feelings toward "home" and "family" have come to be expressed in various ways.

Why is it that time spent sewing with a needle is still so important in our lives?

Such a question is the starting point of this project.

Naomi Okubo, 2023

ちくちくちくと縫うとき、ふと子どものころを思い出す。

料理も裁縫も家で小さい頃から教わってきた。いっときランドセルに裁縫道具しか入っていなかったようなわたしにはどちらも苦ではなく、なにも思わずそのまま大人になった。ただ女の子らしい服を着させられ、髪を短く切ったら男の子のようだとひどく怒られたことを思い出すと、それらを教え伝えることに無意識でも意図があっただろうと今は思う。そこに気がついた時モヤモヤとした気持ちになった。

縫うことは長い間女性を家に縛り付けてきたが、同時に技術の習得は自立する力を与え、針しごとは数少ない表現の手段を担ってきた。

昨今、周辺化されてきた「手芸」にも光があたり、また「家庭」や「家」への人それぞれの複雑な思いも様々な形で発露されるようになった。

今でも針を動かし縫う時間が生活の中で大切なのはなぜなのだろう。

そんな問いが出発点になっている。

2023年　大久保如彌

Courtesy and Photo: ELSA GALLERY

The inspiration for this exhibition came from a moment I experienced in the summer of 2019. I found myself standing in a wildflower garden on a Brooklyn rooftop at sunset, gazing out at huge round tanks used for sewage disposal that were illuminated in purple light. The juxtaposition between the wildflowers, the round tanks, and the Manhattan skyline was almost like an SF movie scene and it shocked me. I also realized it represented a profound contradiction in our world.

The exhibition's title, "Closely Glazed Spaces," was inspired by Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's 1842 book, "On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases," which details his invention of the Wardian Case, the forerunner of modern terrariums and vivariums. After he realized that polluted air during the industrial revolution in London was poisoning the ferns in his garden, he found that sealed glass structures can sustain ecosystems with plants, bugs, and a small amount of soil. His invention helped to understand the natural ecosystem and facilitated the transportation of plants worldwide.

In this exhibition, I am interested in the concept of a sealed environment, where we can control and isolate the surroundings. Inside this space, we can breathe warm, clean, and humid air, surrounded by beautiful plants and butterflies collected with enthusiasm and desire. Being in such an environment, we can easily ignore the outside world and its problems.

Through the motif of a glasshouse in all of my works, I aim to highlight the irony of human beings. As someone who grew up in a dysfunctional family and felt trapped for a long time, this theme is also deeply personal to me. We have all experienced the isolation of living through the pandemic. I hope that my exhibition will expand its meaning through my art and speak to the current human condition. 

展出繪畫作品的所有敘事皆在被玻璃籠罩的空間中上演，大久保如彌安排未露出面貌的主角在絢麗蔓生的植物景觀和繁複花草圖騰壁紙中，展開一連串亦真亦幻的個人生活場景。大久保如彌觀察到，當周圍環繞的都是出於強烈熱愛和慾望所揀選、收藏的植物和蝴蝶，或許已然目不暇給，更無心顧及那堅固又脆弱的玻璃帷幕另一邊真實存在的世界；看似透明卻又橫亙於生命的體驗之間，光線雖然被允許穿過，我們看著的始終只是我們想看的。而完全地控制和隔離究竟是保護還是阻礙？大久保如彌認為經過新冠疫情後，這個主題更拓展了它的意義，因為所有人都對與世隔絕的生活是什麼樣的感受有了自己的體會。

同場亦將展示大久保如彌全新玻璃雕塑，其創作概念亦與展覽主題相連，玻璃塊中的凹陷空間描繪的是一個人的形體，反向提示著我們以為的存在可能是如此虛無而空洞。(Translated to Taiwanese by ELSA GALLERY)

Courtesy and Photo: GALLERY MoMo

In March 2020, New York was in the midst of a lockdown. I couldn't even go to the studio and was constantly frightened by the sound of ambulances ringing in my apartment. But at the same time, I felt grateful for the opportunity to slow down my daily life and have time to do nothing. It seemed like the opposite of what I had once believed was ideal, yet it allowed me to appreciate the important things I had missed in my busy days. In September 2020, I decided to return to Japan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed inherent contradictions in societies across various countries. I began to contemplate the concept of freedom in a country where freedom is highly valued. However, even if we use one word to describe freedom, each person's definition can hinder the freedom of others and may differ from our own.

I pondered the idea of an ideal country and realized that every country has its own version of an ideal. What may be ideal for one person may not be the same for another.

Based on my experiences during the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and the nuclear accident, I realized that important truths and inconvenient realities that the government would rather keep hidden are often concealed in beautiful images and words.

Can we break away from the given utopia and venture into the wilderness, living freely while our hands to one another?

Naomi Okubo, 2021

2020年3月、ロックダウンの最中のNY。スタジオにも行けず、ワンルームのアパートで四六時中鳴り止まない救急車の音に怯えながらも、ふと降りてきたあまりある時間に、なんでもない日常をゆっくり過ごせることのありがたさを感じていた。せかせかと過ごしていた中でこぼれ落ちていたもの。理想とし、憧れていたものとが反転したようだった。

その年の9月に日本に帰国することを決めた。

コロナによるパンデミックはさまざまな国で、その社会が持つ元々ある矛盾を露呈させた。

自由の国で自由について考えていた。
自由とひとことで言っても、誰かの考えた自由は他の人の自由を阻害するものにもなりえて、自分の思う自由とは違うものだったりする。

理想の国で理想とは何か考えた。
どの国もある種の理想を掲げる。
でもその理想は誰かの理想で私や他の人の理想ではなかったりする。

2011年の東日本大震災と原発事故で思い知らされたことは、大事なこと、知られたくない不都合な真実はいつも美しいイメージと言葉で隠されているということだった。

私たちは与えられたユートピアから荒野に出て、それぞれの大事さを手に、手を取り合いながら自由に生きられるだろうか。

2021年　大久保如彌
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Courtesy and Photo: GALLERY MoMo

Press release by Residency Unlimited/

Real Fairy Tale looks at the impact of Disney’s animated fairy tales films on how women in Asia view themselves or are looked upon, through the lens of two women artists who grew up in Japan and Taiwan. This gendered phenomenon is set against the historical backdrop of WW2 and the Japanese defeat which led to major US and Western European interventions in East Asia. Such globalization led to the introduction of Western fairy tales, and their animated versions with its cultural symbolism became immensely popular in mainstream culture.

Naomi Okubo and Lulu Meng moved to New York as working artists. When they met, they realized that they shared similar experiences growing up watching these Disney films. Expectations on how they should look and behave as young women were directly modeled on the likes of Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty figures with their pale skin and big round eyes standards of beauty. Ironically, Meng and Okubo displayed boyish qualities at an early age and were told that they were not “girly enough”. They recall being confused when asked to act “like a princess, marry a prince and live happily after”. At a later stage, they realized that they had been aware all along that fairy tales are not "real". However it was difficult to shirk aside the social and self-determined pressures on how women should behave that was intrinsically associated to these “stories”.

This is the backbone of Real Fairy Tale. An assertion of self-awareness where two very distinct bodies of work enter into dialogue over shared experience, and then transitions from the personal level to broader societal issues relating to female identity, stereotyped gender and how social norms are generally perceived.

In Organic:Emerging Japanese Artist in New York

This exhibition introduce emerging artist from Japan whoa are making their marks in their adopted city of New York, the center of the international art world. In each of their chosen mediums, they present divergent, yet correlating, approaches toward the world consisting of both organic and inorganic materials. Some explore the man-made environment as subject and other reflect upon nature. At first glance, they seem to be contrasting attitudes, but all of the featured artists work with a strong awareness that are key aspect of our 21-cnetury reality.

Naomi Okubo: Depicts imagined spaces that are imbued with intimacy and artificiality. The figures recurring in her paintings are eerily unidentified, except for her clothing that overtly accentuates her femininity through colors and floral patterns. As if pulled from theater sets or pages of shopping catalogues, the image of the interior- the world these women inhabit- poses a question of one's identity as both real and artificial. Her love of floral motifs abounds in the work, and Okubo's literally covers herself with patterns and motifs that both camouflage her identity, just as they heighten and compose. 

Co-curators Eric Shiner and Miwako Tezuka. 

Short Video by FCI (in Japanese)

An article by Nippon Keizai Newspaper (in Japanese)

Courtesy and Photo: GALLERY MoMo

Photo by Lars Danielsson

Courtesy and Photo: GALLERY MoMo

Courtesy and Photo: GALLERY MoMo