Onishi Yasuaki


Onishi Yasuaki is a Japanese artist working in the mediums of installation, sculpture and painting.
Yasuaki Onishi studied sculpture at University of Tsukuba and Kyoto City University of Arts, Japan. His sculptures are made from a mix of materials, including tree branches, wire, hot glue and urea.
Yasuaki uses boxes to map out the eventual shape of his piece, draping a sheet of plastic over them. He attaches the plastic sheet from above using strands of glue, until the boxes can safely be removed without much altering the "landscape". In this sense, the process and finished installation look completely different.
His work has been exhibited in solo shows across Japan and abroad, and included in both Ways of Worldmaking in 2011 and National Museum of Art, Osaka.
In 2010, Yasuaki was the recipient of a United States-Japan Foundation Fellowship that included a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, as well as a grant from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Inc., New York.
His most recent solo exhibition in the United States was in 2012 at the Marlin and Regina Miller Gallery at Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
His piece "Reverse of Volume" was the central feature in the 2015 annual exhibition "Vide et Plein" of Paris-based Maison Bleu Studio.
In 2016, Yasuaki did a large installation for the Fresh Paint Contemporary Art & Design Fair, Tel-Aviv's largest and most influential annual art event in Israel.

Prizes

In a collaboration with Mercedes-Benz, Onishi Yasuaki did a sculptural installation based on the CLA model of Mercedes-Benz, the video Shaping Air was directed by German director Björn Fischer.

Selected group exhibitions