Kat Griefen, Director • email info@airgallery.org • gallery hours Wednesday through Sunday • 11am to 6pm
111 Front Street • #228 • Brooklyn, NY 11201 • phone 212.255.6651 • fax 212.255.6653
 
A.I.R. GALLERY - Advocating for women in the visual arts since 1972.
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ARI TABEI
 


ARTIST'S STATEMENT
I make garments and bags to create nests that are like my own home, my own world. These function as cocoons for me, to heal and nourish myself so that I regain strength to survive when I emerge from them. Interacting with the garments and bags, I invent ritualistic play that revives my childhood experiences and interprets the influences of my culture. In my current series, I use different materials and processes to explore specific meanings. With these materials, I package my body to disconnect myself from reality, but also to tie myself to it.

My interest in rituals lies in my experience, as I grew up in Japan, of the importance of mindfully engaging in daily and ordinary activity with severe discipline. I am attracted to the power and beauty of rituals such as tea ceremony, kimono-wearing, and traditional Japanese wrapping techniques. They are all based on the adoration of the beautiful in everyday existence. This aesthetic teaches us purity and harmony and the mystery of the nature of human beings. I started to invent my own rituals to celebrate my resistance to what was for me the miserable creature called “life”, hoping to make my petty existence acceptable to this creature, after learning to accept it. As I engage myself in the performance of ritual play, my intention is to reach for understanding and transformation. In this practice of conscious engagement, I seek a truth about self and a transformative process which reveals both desperation and hope.

 

RESUME

Residencies/Performances



2008

•Performance Night at A.I.R.-A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY

•Fellowship Award,-A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY

•LMCC Swing Space Award- Lower Manhattan Cultural Council

•4-week Residency Program Fellowship Award- Vermont Studio Center


•Collaborative Performance, Cocohabitat (no.2), at the WAH Center Salon Art Club Show

WAH Center (Williamsburg Art and Historical Center), Brooklyn, NY


2007

•Performance at the Art Sale- Chashama, 112 44th Street Window Gallery, NY

•Studio Residency (6 months)- Chashama, Studio X at 57th&12Ave, NYC

•Commissioned Collaborative Performance, Cocohabitat (no.1)-Chashama,112 West 44th Street


•Live Performance- Sideshow gallery, Brooklyn, NY



2005

•4-week Residency Program (Partial Scholarship)- Vermont Studio Center



2005-7

•Teaching Assistantship

University of Connecticut


2002

•Teaching Fellowship

Brandeis University


1994

•Full scholarship for Exchange Program Sophia University, Tokyo Japan/Hamline Univeristy, St. Paul, MN



Teaching/Lecturing



2007

•Invited Speaker - Basic Sculpture

University of Hartford



2007

•Invited Speaker - Japanese Culture

Eastern Connecticut State University


2007

•Instructor - Performance Workshop

University of Connecticut



Education



2007

•MFA - University of Connecticut


2002

•Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Studio Art

Brandeis University



1997

•BA International Legal Studies

Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan


Selected Exhibitions



2007

•Group Show, no•mad II

Design Center Building (Park Street), Hartford, CT


•Juried Group Show, Annual International Exhibition of Women’s Art

SOHO20 Chelsea, New York, NY



•Group Show, Collection of Similar Houses

Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY



•Juried Group Show, 101 Dresses

Artspace, New Haven, CT


•MFA Exhibition