Mihoko Hiruta
I visited Mihoko Hiruta’s first solo show in Tokyo. The venue is Hikari Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo.
She’s based in her hometown of Kyoto, where by all appearances she’s producing new work with great enthusiasm.
I first saw Hiruta’s work last year in the Ueno Artist Project “Contemporary Realism — Beyond the Image” at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and I’ve been watching out for her ever since.
Hiruta belongs to the artist association Shinseisaku Kyokai (New Creation Association) and won a special commemorative award at the group’s 80th exhibition — she’s got the credentials.
Fortunately, Hiruta herself happened to be at the gallery during my visit, and I was able to talk with her about all sorts of things.
Mihoko Hiruta takes vegetables, fruits, fish, and other food items as her motifs, showing them in anthropomorphic poses and in her own distinctive combinations.
I’d assumed she was painting imaginary worlds onto canvas, but in fact for every work she actually sources the food that will become the motif, freely assembles or cooks it, and completes it as a physical object. Then, while looking at the finished object, she first works it up as a watercolor. After that, she uses oil paint to produce the oil painting. It reminded me of Yumiko Utsu’s recent solo show that I saw the other day…
The pairing of octopus suckers and a turnip is a wonderfully inventive idea. There’s a wealth of detail packed in, and you can tell she’s painted it meticulously.
A work that fuses kiwi and lime naturally. Even pieces like this are actually assembled in the real world with real fruit to match the finished composition.
Still in her twenties, she’s a young artist. I hope she’ll keep surprising us with her unconventional imagination.
She has more exhibitions lined up. Looking forward to seeing where she goes next.
