Opening Thursday, January 25th, Wako Works of Art is very pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Shizuka Yokomizo for its first exhibition of 2007. Born in 1966 in Tokyo, Yokomizo currently lives and works in London. She hasexhibited in London, New York, and in various parts of Europe, and has been included in international shows such asClandestines curated by Francesco Bonami for the 50th Venice Biennial and the First ICP Triennial of Photography andVideo in New York. This will be her fifth exhibition at Wako Works of Art.

After completing her studies in Philosophy at Chuo University, Yokomizo majored in Fine Arts at Chelsea College of Artand Design and Goldsmiths College. Since, she has been working with video and photography. Her early work"Sleeping" (1995-1997) is comprised of intimate photographs of her friends sleeping in their dark rooms; for "Stranger,"(1999-2002) she sent anonymous letters to strangers, asking them to pose in front of their window at a certain time forher to photograph from the street. Both series pursue her themes of human presence, solitude, the relationship betweenprivate and public, and the self and the other.

Her newest work, "Prayer," captures a Christian male and a female poet and their respective daily practices of prayingand writing a poem as extensions of their everyday activities. The work compares those practices to the act of consciouslytracing the mechanism of human desire that lies within the absolute relationship between oneself and the other.

This exhibition also includes Yokomizo's other new work in video and photograph, "Phantom," in which five individuals(all actors) share their personal accounts of apparitions.

» Press Release(PDF)