Hiro Yamagata: T R A N S I E NT

Hodnett Fine Art
Vancouver BC – Nov 27, 2008 – Feb 27, 2009

Hiro Yamagata, from Untitled (2008), black ink, graphite on rice paper on canvas [Hodnett Fine Art, Vancouver BC, Nov 27-Feb 27]

Hiro Yamagata, from Untitled (2008), black ink, graphite on rice paper on canvas [Hodnett Fine Art, Vancouver BC, Nov 27-Feb 27]

Hiro Yamagata, Painting #22 (2008), black ink, graphite on rice paper on canvas [Hodnett Fine Art, Vancouver BC, Nov 27-Feb 27]

Japanese-born artist Hiro Yamagata is recognized as a pioneer of contemporary laser art. He bases his wide-ranging activities in Los Angeles where his studio serves as a science laboratory. His brilliantly coloured installations are comprised of multiple laser systems, holographic surfaces and sometimes mirrors, with complex computer systems controlling each laser to change colours, patterns, speed, duration and intensity.

His influential work has been installed at prestigious sites across North America and in Sweden, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy and Japan. He will be creating major holographic installations in Russia in 2009 and, Afghanistan in 2012.

In quite a different vein of work, TRANSIENT is a series of works on canvas that explore the transient world of consciousness. They share Yamagata's fascination with unconscious experience and sensory stimulation. The shadowy places between our many levels of consciousness are the subject of this series as he diagrammatically tracks simultaneous experiences of multiple realities experienced by the human brain in any one moment, including conscious experience, physical experience, emotional responses and what he describes as "buried memories, forgotten dreams, and fleeting ideas.”

Hiro Yamagata was born in Japan in 1948, and studied at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he befriended members of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso. He moved to Los Angeles in 1978, then toured the States for seven years. He continues to live and work in Los Angeles. TRANSIENT, his first exhibit in Vancouver, was previously shown at Frank Gehry's studio in Los Angeles in September 2007.

www.noelhodnett.com

Mia Johnson