Text and photos from the West site:
... Keiko Sato (1957, JP) changes the meaning of solid materials as plates, mirrors and stones by breaking them. A glass is no longer a glass when smashed to smithereens. Part of a soup bowl has a different shape than the original bowl, and therefore it changes its meaning. By breaking the bowl it loses its function, and therefore it loses its identity. Then Sato can start working.
In her own language, she shows nature, structure and quality of these objects and uses these for making an installation which resembles a landscape. The solid material is the starting point. Organic material such as rice, flour, tea, coffee and spaghetti become visual joints. Sato's installations show sensitiveness, violence and beauty at the same moment. These apperently contradictory properties are reinforced by the use of simple materials. The work being both very labour-intensive and also very transient, it makes vulnerability visible.
The work process asks a lot of the artist and she can sometimes get in a different state of mind. This conscienceness makes, without Sato losing her awareness or concentration, her subconsciousness visible in her work. For West, Sato will make a new work, in the same meticulous manner, in which chaos and control cannot be separated. Existing domestic objects such as plates of porcelein, cups and glasses form the startingpoint of a new work on the floor of the large space of the galerie.
For some years Sato has also used different ways to develop concepts. Her collages, photos and video have been inspired by the work of Pablo Picasso and Jean-Luc Godard. This shows in the use of picture- and textfragments and several different ways of making collages. She asks questions, but we will get no answers. 'Is it pure? Is it a waste or life? Is it insane? Is it an obsession?'
