Shigeko Hirakawa

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Shigeko Hirakawa

Shigeko Hirakawa ( Japanese 平川 滋 子 , Hirakawa Shigeko ; * 1953 in Kurume , Japan ) is a Japanese artist who has lived and worked in Paris ( France ) since 1983 .

biography

philosophy

Hirakawa started out as a painter, but since her arrival in France (1983) her interest turned more and more to the relationship between man and nature. Her art now almost always takes place in the open air and centered around the basic elements of our planet, water, air, sun, in connection with plants.

The storms that devastated large parts of Europe in 1999 and also destroyed a work in the making by Hirakawa, inspired her to work on the relationship to our environment and the forces of nature. The heat wave of 2003 exacerbated this trend.

Work examples

Air en péril is an art project inspired by an EU report on the state of Europe's forests. It consists of three main parts:

  • Arbre à photosynthèse (tree of photosynthesis)
  • Roue aérienne (air bike)
  • Molécule d'oxygène (oxygen molecule)

Arbre à photosynthèse was already realized in France in 2006, in the USA in 2007 and in Japan in 2009. More than a thousand flat discs with a curved edge are attached to a tree. The material of the panes changes color when exposed to sunlight, from milky white at night to pale pink to intense purple during the day. The work visualizes the photosynthesis of the plants, which absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.

Hirakawa's questions are serious, but the artist treats them in a poetic way. Her work Tobbogan des Dieux (Die Rutsche der Götter, 2006), 30 meters high and with a total length of 66 meters, refers to Japanese mythology and its answer to the question of how the gods come to earth and that of storms other forces of nature can soothe unsettled people.

Below are links to the photos of the individual works

Art in public space

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Links to the works

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hirakawa, Shigeko
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 平川 滋 子 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Kurume , Japan