Born in Shizuoka, Toru Ishii earned his doctorial degree in traditional dyeing in 2014. After receiving a grant from the Japanese government, he worked as a visiting researcher at Victoria and Albert Museum in London for two years. As a member of new generation of artists who inherit the traditional culture, he has been participating in numerous exhibitions in Japan and abroad. Selected solo and group shows include Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery (London), Japan Society Art Gallery (NY), POLA MUSEUM ANNEX (Tokyo), Sokyo Gallery (Kyoto), FITZROVID Gallery (London). His works are collected by Morikawa Museum (Miami) and Victoria and Albert Museum (London).
My Fallen Leaves’ series examine how overflowing images on internet are searched, consumed, retained, stored and updated in the era of excessive information.
The work ‘Chocolate Grinder’ is a contemporary take on Marcel Duchamp’s 1913 work with the same title. This contemporary take portrays a picture formulated through internet searches, which became a part of everyday life in recent years. The visual components used in this work are numerous digital images obtained by actually entering the words ‘Chocolate Grinder’ at the search engine site. By collaging the digital images and applying a bleeding technique, one of the traditional dyeing methods, onto the silk, I attempt to create an image that involves coincidence and immediacy, examining the possibility of picture.
