Synapse Festival | Artists

Chie Hosaka graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a BA in Fine Art in 2007 and since then has continued to live and work in Nottingham. Recent exhibitions include Imagination Christmas at The Wasp Room, Very Holy Grail at Backlit and a solo show at Lee Rosy's in Nottingham. Alongside her artistic practice, Hosaka also works as an illustrator and collaborates with independent businesses and artists for their marketing materials. She works in a range of media, from drawing, to installation and sculpture.

Interested in human forms and the absurdity of reality, Hosaka illustrates surreal settings that suggest a narrative reflecting the artist's everyday life. Her unique vision of reality is captured and expressed through simple forms and faces suggesting an idea that the world is made up of many surreal moments. Melancholic and absurd characters stare at us consumed by their own futility seeking our attention and an answer in unsettling obscure activities - reminiscent of occult practices - which seem to be without purpose and even self-destructive. For Hosaka, drawing has become a way of connecting countless pieces of uncertain emotions that lies deep within her with the outer world; hidden anxieties, repressed behaviour, and denied compulsions. In her images, the world is depicted as a place where everything exits in a constant loop where beginning and ending are entwined with one another, with birth signalling death, and happiness only existing as ambivalence.

Her works are rich in psychological symbolism, with her characters often in conflict with undesirable elements of their own personalities. As an identical twin, thousands of miles away from her 'other half', the notion of duality is inherent in much of Hosaka's work and often represented through violent separations and arguments. It is in all this sadness, though, that a poignant beauty is found; a kind of tragic comedy.

In spite of the deeply personal nature of her work, above all else, Hosaka's drawings are enjoyable for their inventiveness and imagination. Though sometimes alien in appearance, her graphite and ink forms remain distinctly human, scarily familiar and undeniably universal.

For Synapse I intend to produce a series of drawings that relate to one another by a narrative. The drawings will reflect my interest in ways of expressing the connection between myself and the outer world. The work will illustrate the idea that birth, growth and death, are all happening on the same time line. The distinction between beginning and ending is blurred by series of events all happening in a loop. I intend to express this by producing a set of drawings in various sizes and hanging them in an order that will reflect on the theme of the whole art work.

Chie Hosaka | www.chiehosaka-illustrations.blogspot.com