LIEKO SHIGA
CANARY

Vernissage
Saturday, May 21 2011, 6pm - 9pm
The artist is present
With an introduction by Ferdinand Brüggemann

Exhibition:
May 24 - July 30 2011

Galerie Priska Pasquer is pleased to present the 'Canary' series by Japanese artist Lieko Shiga, for which she won the 'Infinity Award (Young Photographer)' from the International Center of Photography, New York, in 2009.
In 'Canary', Lieko Shiga combines personal accounts of people and local myths with her own personal memories, feelings and experiences to create fantastic, often perplexing scenarios. The works interact to form a complex, dramatic tableau that vacillates between dreams and reality.
The works in this series were created in Brisbane (Australia), Singapore and Northern Japan. In order to establish contact with local people in these areas, Lieko Shiga produced a questionnaire in which she asked about particular places and personal experiences and stories relating to these.
The contact to the people and the places they mention form the starting point for the 'Canary' series, yet it is ultimately the artist’s own inner imagery that is reflected in the photographic works:


'I can already visualize the finished photograph when I first encounter the subject or scene, or even before that. The time that exists before the photograph is taken, shoots me where I stand outside, and restores me to life.

The body is simply a medium, I kept a canary inside my stomach.' (Lieko Shiga).
For the most part, the works are deliberately staged for the camera, for instance when the artist adorns a withered tree with a thousand paper blossoms ('Wedding Veil') or creates a monumental animal skull to serve as the centrepiece of a portrait photograph ('My Husband'). Less frequent are ‘direct’ photographs such as 'Man wearing Fur' for which Lieko Shiga accompanied bear hunters to the mountains of Northern Japan.

Lieko Shiga was born in 1980 in the prefecture of Aichi and lives and works in Sendai, Japan.
Studium an der Chelsea University of Art and Design, London. 2004 Abschluss BA Fine Arts New Media.
She has been involved in many group and individual exhibitions, including 'Rapt! Contemporary Art from Japan', Seventh Gallery, Melbourne, Australia; 'BMW Young Asian Artist Series', Tyler Print Institute, Singapore; 'Unseen', Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai, China; 'Roppongi Crossing 2010: Can There Be Art? The Creative Potential of New Japan', Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; 'Aichi Triennale 2010: Arts and Cities', Aichi Arts Center, Aichi, Japan.

2005 'Mio Photo Award - Jurors Award' (Michiko Kasahara), Japan.
In 2008, she was presented with the 'Kimura Ihei Photography Award'
In 2009, she won the 'Infinity Award (Young Photographer)' from the International Center of Photography, New York.


Publications:

- Lilly. Artbeat, Tokyo 2007

- Canary. Akaaka, Tokyo 2007

- Canary Mon (Canary Gate). Akaaka, Tokyo 2009