FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Maya Onoda: Kaleidoscope
October 19 – November 24, 2012
Artist Reception: Thursday, October 18th 6-8pm
Magnan Metz Gallery is pleased to present Maya Onoda’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Kaleidoscope will be on display from October 19th through November 24th with an artist reception on Thursday, October 18th from 6-8pm.
Known for her intricate paper cutouts and delicate installations, Onoda refers back to this medium to explore the transformation of everyday life into art.
Every time you turn the tube, a kaleidoscope gives you a different view. The colored pieces of paper found inside, never changing in their form, can create endless designs of varying colors and shapes. This is determined by the reflection of those pieces of paper in the interior mirror. Onoda finds this concept of transformation very similar to a human’s subjectivity. All things appear differently depending on how we are looking at them on a particular day, in a particular place, at a particular time.
Inspired by the coffee she drinks each morning, Onoda displays shoji paper, intertwined and stained with stale coffee (using filters), in the primary installation piece aptly titled, Kaleidoscope. Instead of finding frustration in the concept of a spilled drink on one’s clothing or table, Onoda seeks to find beauty and appreciation. All things, even the most mundane, have the potential to be great art. Kaleidoscope displays Onoda’s trademark cutout design. The cutouts of the suspended work ultimately become the negative space of the “drawing” while the actual pieces of cut paper are saved and used in other works, becoming the positive space. In consequence, the second work turns the first one into the negative: the positive and negative are one and indivisible.
Counterbalancing each other, one work leads to another. The repetition of this process becomes an infinite loop. At the same time, transformation is always happening within this repetition by changing one’s perspective. Just like a kaleidoscope, Onoda’s work tells a different story with every transformation, and it becomes "the never ending story.”
Maya Onoda was born in Japan and received her BFA from California State University-Fullerton and an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She was awarded the 2006 MFA Grant Award from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Most recently, Onoda exhibited at Mad L Gallery in Taiwan as well as the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor, Staten Island, NY. She has participated in group shows including The Fashion District Arts Festival, New York, NY and Garbage Picker, The Contemporary Artist as Chiffonier(e) curated by Amy Brandt.
For more information or images, please contact the gallery at info@magnanmetz.com or 212-244-2344