Artist Information:
Name: Kiyomi Fukui
Media: Interactive Art
Gallery: Own Website
Social Media: Website
About the Artist:
Kiyomi Fukui is an independent artist who is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach with a Masters in Printmaking.
Formal Analysis:
These set of interaction exhibitions feature an artistic tea set, surrounded by green vegetation in a white room, with four blue cushions surrounding the tea table. The main source of light appears to be sunlight coming through open areas. The majority of colors featured in these pictures are white and blue, with a decent amount of green in the final picture.
Content Analysis:
The main inspiration behind a lot of Fukui’s works is the exploration of the temporary nature of life and it’s impermanence, and this piece, “Tea at 3307”, is no different. The exhibition itself is divided into two concepts of impermanence, active and passive. The area surrounding the main tea area is covered with plants, which as living things have a finite life, and often times will never return to the state they were yesterday. This imbues the exhibit with a small sense of the passage and finality of time. The main attraction, however is the tea exhibit. With drinking tea being a temporary action that consumes resource to proceed, it strikes at the core of lasting a short time. Fukui has in the past referenced the idea that as humans, we seek permanence as it presents us with a sense of stability. In this art exhibit with it’s display of green and blue, the outer edge of the tea circle, covered with vegetation, represents the earth: the plants are slowly dying, but most likely, they will outlast the activities that we humans will carry out within it. Meanwhile, the tea activity itself, with it at most lasting a couple hours, represents the fragility of human life, and how quickly time passes around us.
Synthesis:
The most interesting part of this exhibit to me is the idea that actions can be displayed in an art exhibit as art. Art to me has always seemed like a result of actions that is displayable on it’s own, like the Mona Lisa, or even Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s maintenance art. However, this tea activity implies an interpretation of life in the very action itself. While hardly the point of this exhibit, this is what drew me most to this specific art piece.
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