Yumiko Ono, TOKAS Resident

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop is excited to announce that Yumiko Ono is the artist selected to represent TOKAS in Scotland-Japan Residency programme. She will be in residence at ESW for three months between April and June developing a series of new works.

Ono Yumiko completed her BA in Kyoto Seika University (Japan) in oil painting in 2005. Since her BA, Ono studied in Hungarian University of Fine Arts (Hungary), in Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (Israel) and studied in Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (Czech Republic) and completed an MA in intermedia in Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (Czech Republic) and second MA honors in ceramics in Stieglitz State Academy of Arts and Design (Russia). All of which were funded by the governments of each country as well as the Ministry of Culture of Japan. Additionally, Ono has participated in residency programs world widely such as John Michael Kohler Arts Center, MASS MoCA (MA), ISCP, Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, Retreat (USA), BANFF Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada), Taipei Artist Village (Taiwan), Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, Paradise AIR, Hisai Ars Plaza, C.A.P. (Japan), Gyeonggi Creation Center (South Korea), CCI Fabrika, St. Petersburg Art Residency (Russia), RSJ (Brazil), Meet Factory (Czech Republic) and At Home Gallery Residency (Slovakia). Ono was also awarded Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship as well as grants from Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation, Asahi Shimbun Foundation, Japan Foundation and was selected as a finalist of CAF award.

Yumiko Ono has exhibited her work in Europe and Asia and more recently the USA and Russia. Including the solo shows “Epitomes” at MoCA Taipei (Taiwan), “Organic Matter” at Diem Phung Thi Museum (Vietnam), and group shows, “Domani” at The National Art Center in Tokyo (Japan), “Bashnya” at Yelabuga State Historical Architectural Art Museum Preservation (Russia), “Utopia on the Brink of an International Creative Laboratory Bashnya (Russia), International Art Symposium Elements Cuisine (Slovakia) and Kyoto Sento Art Festival (Japan). Her work appears in both public and private collections.

Yumiko Ono’s work currently pivots on an inquiry into ideas of utopia, filtered through the lenses of Socialist and Western architecture. She has been producing ceramics and drawings based on the research. By using reference from the existing buildings as well as unrealized architectural plans Ono creates fictive architectural work with anti-architectural materials such as ceramics, paper, and textile. Unlike the characteristic of architecture, which is rigid, strong, rational, she uses materials with the opposite characteristics such as soft, fragile, and sensitive, to critique fragility and fictionality of utopia itself. Through those fictive architecture, she aims to create the world which does not belong to anywhere.

Yumiko Ono’s ESW Residency Project continues this research and will focus on the production of infinitely scalable sculptures.

More about Ono Yumiko’s work here