Digital arts festival NEoN to host first solo UK exhibition by Akinori Oishi

Sept. 1, 2010 - PRLog -- Digital arts festival, North East of North, NEoN, announces the first ever solo UK exhibition by critically-acclaimed Japanese artist Akinori Oishi. Oishi’s exhibition will showcase his talents for graphic art through multimedia by focusing upon and interpreting the theme of this year’s NEoN, ‘character’.

Chair of the NEoN organising group and Cultural Projects officer for the University of Abertay, Donna Holford-Lovell welcomes the forthcoming exhibition by award-winning artist Akinori Oishi.

“I met Akinori in New York at the Pictoplasma Contemporary Character Festival 2008. I was so inspired by his passion and commitment that I have been waiting for the ideal opportunity to commission new work by Akinori and to have him speak in the UK. NEoN has provided that opportunity and it is an honour to finally work with him,” said Holford-Lovell.

The exhibition promises to give audiences an insight into Oishi’s interpretation of the concept of ‘Character’ through his use of drawing and typographic language. His stylistic approach expresses an infinity as the self-confessed ‘Drawaholic’ immerses himself in a landscape of images without boundaries; it is this interpretation which is sure to inspire the audience. The realization of the highly anticipated Oishi exhibition by NEoN has been financially supported by The Japan Foundation to promote the creative industries within Japan.

Akinori Oishi is thrilled to have the opportunity of exhibiting his work at this year’s NEoN festival taking place in Dundee 8-14 November, 2010. He stated,

“I’m excited to experience how the art scene is in the UK and how British people are thinking about digital media at the NEoN festival. The most interesting thing about participating in a festival is communicating with friendly people and native audiences.”

Oishi began his career by studying Fine Arts at the Kyoto City University of Art before honing his drawing skills and developing the interactive nature of his graphic art through multimedia at the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences, IAMAS, Japan. Oishi has since received international critical acclaim for his work including the MILIA, International Multimedia Fair award in France in 2001, working with French creative design studio Team cHmAn, and subsequent invitations to teach and guest-lecture at the Tama Art University in Tokyo and the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, ECAL in Switzerland respectively.  Particularly relevant to this year’s NEoN festival, is Oishi’s previous collaboration with Pictoplasma, a relationship which produced creative and interactive art installations which pushed the dimensional boundaries of what is considered virtual and ‘real’ imagery.

The exhibition by Akinori Oishi is set to be one of the highlights of the digital arts festival NEoN which will showcase both international and local artists and the manner in which they choose to interpret this year’s theme through various media.

For further information and programme of events visit http://www.northeastofnorth.com/

To view further examples of Akinori Oishi’s work visit http://aki-air.com/

Ends


Contact:

Helen Reid
Revolver PR                
E: helen@revolver-pr.co.uk
T:  0845 130 8992


Donna Holford-Lovell
NEoN chair of organising committee  
E: d.holford-lovell@abertay.ac.uk


Notes to Editors:

The Akinori Oishi exhibition will run November 12, 2010 – January 28, 2011 at the Hannah Maclure Centre in Dundee. Opening hours of the Hannah Maclure centre are 9.30am to 4.45pm, Monday to Friday.

North East of North (NEoN) is an international digital arts festival featuring moving image, performance, music and technology driven arts. The over arching curatorial theme for 2010 is Character: evaluating the abstracted or physical agent in a work of art; investigation of the fictional or psychological systems; observation of the unit of information, symbol, sound or written language.

Through this focused dimension NEoN intends to explore the notion of collaboration between visual art, information communication, media production and gaming that will expand digital development and knowledge. (www.northeastofnorth.com)

NEoN was created by Interactive Tayside (www.interactivetayside.com).
Interactive Tayside is a partnership between public, private and academic sectors to develop and promote Tayside's digital media industry.

NEoN is sponsored by: Angus & Dundee City Council, Event Scotland, National Lottery Awards for All, The Japan Foundation, Creative City Challenge, Scottish Enterprise & the North Sea Screen Partnership

Partners include: Interactive Tayside, Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre (DCA), Dundee City Council, The University of Abertay, Dundee College, Hungy Boy, Realtime Worlds, Revolver PR, Red Pepper Events, Simultaneita & Insight Innovations

The International App Conference & AppJam (www.appjam.eu) are funded by the Interreg Creative City Challenge (www.creative-city-challenge.net). The AppCon has been created by Dundee College and is supported by partners including: Cobra Mobile, Denki, Digital Goldfish, Dynamo Games, Electric Tophat, Lynda.com, One Thumb Mobile, Realtime Worlds, Revolver PR, Sooper Double D, Tag Games, Waracle & YoYo Games.

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