Art & Design Forum | Utako Shindo

Material lives breathe and artworks speak the untranslatable.

Shindo will elaborate on this understanding through discussing her theoretical, archival, studio and field researches, which mediate different cultural and artistic disciplines. Her recent sumi-ink painting on paper and charcoal kiln firing with clay commonly exemplify how transferring and centering processes can draw gesture of nuanced shadow, and opening a particular spatiality, reminiscent of Ma and Chora, within our perception. She will also introduce the upcoming collaborative experimental workshop with Dr. Kate Hill at Strathnairn Arts, where we will together form abstract spaces by throwing local clay on the banding wheel, building and firing in charcoal kiln, and creating viewing space. 

Utako Shindo is an artist working in the poetics of untranslatability. ‘Transferring’ and ‘centering’ processes guide her art to embody a poetic place with nuanced images and forms. Shindo obtained her Ph.D. (2013-2017) through the interdisciplinary Centre for Ideas, the University of Melbourne, as well as her BFA in Drawing (2006) and MFA (2008) through the Victorian College of the Arts. As a Japanese government creative fellow (2018), she undertook a year-long research on Agnes Martin’s abstraction in New Mexico, USA. Exhibiting her installation works widely including 5.gallery (Santa Fe) and Youkobo Art Space (Tokyo), she also lectures sessionally at Kyoto Seika University and Joshibi University of Art and Design, and co-organizes PoChiDai (University of Poetic Children).