Unfamiliar Landscape - Blue Painting

Ai Hashimoto is a Japanese artist who lives and works in The Netherlands. She has exhibited in various galleries and museums in Europe. Last year, for example, her graphic work was exhibited at Escher Museum (Escher in Het Paleis) in NL and her performance at the Kloosterkerk was shown on the Dutch National television programme. The starting point for her work is always a story. A story that she creates herself and ritual theories play an important role. It is not surprising that she has a background as an anthropologist. She studied anthropology at the University of Leuven in Belgium and fine arts at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in the Netherlands. She incorporates her anthropological knowledge and interest into her artwork. A major inspiration for one of her stories is the tsunami disaster in Japan. She developed the story about the character 'Kinoko', who develops new kinds of organisms and creates an unfamiliar landscape out of the barren desert. Kinoko is a mushroom-headed character who descends from the sky carrying a bag filled with the essence of life. Ai creates multimedia works, with which she has now created a surprising and multifaceted oeuvre. Painting, paper art, sculptures, installations and performances that always reveal surprising forms and rituals she has devised. A destruction and a resilience of nature have been important themes in recent years. Through her art, she shows us a new, scenic world, more positive, peaceful and serene. ​​​​​​​