Ana Scripcariu-Ochiai “Flickering Outlines”
Ana Scripcariu-Ochiai — an elite artist who graduated at the top of her class from the Oil Painting Department of Tokyo University of the Arts. That unusual name comes from her being half-Japanese and half-Romanian.
Every work on view is a monochrome still photograph, but the subjects’ faces have plastic film — cut to the size of the face — sewn over them, making the faces impossible to make out clearly. It’s a device that visualizes breathing.
About the works — Photographs of nameless people gathered in Japan and Romania, my two homelands. The “breath” made visible by the sewn-on plastic bag stands for the elements that pass back and forth between self and other. Distant strangers whose faces you don’t know, people already gone, people you hate, people you love — the chance that a fragment that was once part of them will, through the very breath you take now, become part of you is not zero percent. A boy on a tricycle, a bride, a mother and child, a father — across eras, lands, and peoples they never share, a certain something in common floats to the surface.
As time passes and the plastic decays, only the dotted stitch marks remain in the photograph.
Ana Scripcariu-Ochiai
Even in photographs of others, blurring the face visually leaves room for the viewer to feel it as their own.
Bambinart Gallery has a subtle sense of someone being in the back, but there’s never anyone actually in the gallery. The quiet atmosphere of the space matches the works perfectly, letting you take your time with them.
Prices start from around ¥30,000 — very reasonable and easy to acquire. There was a piece I wanted, but unfortunately it was already sold, marked with a red dot.
Lately she seems to be focusing her practice on installation, but as top of her class at the Oil Painting Department of Tokyo University of the Arts, I’d love to see her drawings and paintings too.
