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Sasaoka Yuriko

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Sasaoka Yuriko was born in 1988 in Osaka, Japan. She received her MFA in oil painting and PhD in media art from the Kyoto City University of Arts.

In her practice, Sasaoka investigates the limits and potentiality of representation through various modalities of entertainment, including theater, song, and the collective screen. Many of her works respond, whether explicitly or indirectly, to the 2011 tsunami and earthquake in Japan, tapping into the collective consciousness of those who live close to disaster, or, as Sasaoka says, “between life and death.” Witnessing the tragedy unfold on a tiny television screen, Sasaoka interpreted the flat surface to be a membrane that presented an unreality or unresolvable gap between action and consequence.


Through immersive video installations that often involve the idea of the marionette—a symbol of sociopolitical puppeteering and gendered normativity—she expands the interstitial spaces between the surreal and the lucid. In her works, she performs as multiple characters, liberating narratives from rigid ideas around gender, identity, and history. A recent work, "Planaria" (2021), utilizes handmade fish-head dolls to illustrate the loss of agency in events of individual or collective trauma. Whether through hand puppets, traditional marionettes, or animated figures, Sasaoka addresses critical topics, rendering the moving image and history itself as a fluid and conflicted narrative.

Her work has been shown at Reborn Art Festival, Kyoto Art Centre (Kyoto), Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taipei), VBKÖ (Vienna), and TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art (Szczecin). She won Grand Prize at the Gunma Biennale for Young Artists in 2017.

Yoriko
2021
Crayon, thread, canvas
60 × 30 cm

Installation view of "Pansy" (2022) at Reborn Art Festival, Miyagi, 2022. Photo by Taichi Saito.

Planaria Fish Doll: Belgium
2020-21
Fish head, resin, fabric, thread, rhinestone
30 x 13 x 4.5 cm


Gyro: Exercise Running

2023

Oil pastel on linen, thread, beads, sequins

60 x 45 cm


Installation view of "Disappear from the Earth," TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, 2021-22.

Aura
2021
Crayon, thread, canvas
30 × 60 cm

Planaria Fish Painting: Strangling
2022
Acrylic, oil pastel, thread on canvas
30 x 21 cm


Planaria Fish Painting: Crushed
2022
Acrylic, oil pastel, thread on canvas
21 x 30 cm


Installation view "Planaria" at PHD Group. Photo credit: Felix S.C. Wong

Planaria Fish Painting: Famine
2022
Acrylic, oil pastel, thread on canvas
30 x 21 cm


Planaria Fish Doll: India
2020-21
Fish head, resin, fabric, thread, rhinestone
31 x 13 x 4.5 cm


Gyro: Hand Puppet Pigeon

2023

Oil pastel on canvas, thread, beads, sequins

26 x 26 cm


Installation view of "Gyro" at Liste, Basel, 2023


Installation view of "Planaria" (2020-21) at PHD Group, Hong Kong, 2022.

Planaria Fish Doll: France
2020-21
Fish head, resin, fabric, thread, rhinestone
30 x 10 x 4.5 cm


Planaria Fish Doll: Poland
2020-21
Fish head, resin, fabric, thread, rhinestone
54 x 10 x 4.5 cm


Planaria Fish Painting: Struck by Train
2022
Acrylic, oil pastel, thread on canvas
21 x 30 cm


Installation view of "Pansy" (2022) at Reborn Art Festival, Miyagi, 2022. Photo by Taichi Saito.

Icarus
2021
Crayon, thread, canvas
60 × 30 cm

Installation view "Planaria" at PHD Group. Photo credit: Felix S.C. Wong

Clip (without sound) from Bodybuilding in the Water (2012-2013), 3 minutes 58 seconds.

Clip (without sound) from Atem (2014-15), 4 minutes 2 seconds.

Clip (without sound) from Gyro (2018). 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

Clip (without sound) of Icarus's Bride (2015-16). 7 minutes 43 seconds.

Installation clip of "Pansy" (2022) at Reborn Art Festival, Miyagi, 2022.

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