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Kelly Akashi

Executed with deft manual skill and astute material knowledge, Kelly Akashi's visual language emphasizes the impermanence of the natural world, recording and indexing fragmented moments in time. Her singular practice is characterized by a rigorous conceptual approach, yet the work is distinguished by a deep reverence for process. Always a student, Akashi is perpetually studying new practices and physical techniques such as glass-blowing, casting, candle-making and stone carving. The repeated use of the hand as motif serves as a symbol for Akashi’s ongoing investigation into the temporality of the human experience. Often cast in bronze or crystal, her hands bear the mark of time on her body, her growing fingernails, and aging flesh. Towering sculpted weeds, delicately glass-blown flowers, a to-scale depiction of her body in polished travertine, enlarged casts of extinct species of shells; Akashi poetically and objectively encapsulates the notion of mortality in a ritualistic gathering of objects. However, her take on her own practice is not a morbid one. Akashi references the phrase mono no aware. “It refers to a wistful awareness of impermanence—the 'pathos of things.' It’s central to hanami, the Japanese custom of venturing out to enjoy the brief season of cherry blossoms.”

Kelly Akashi was born in 1983 in Los Angeles. She received a BFA from Otis College of Art & Design in 2006 and an MFA from the University of Southern California in 2014. She also studied at the prestigious Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Städelschule) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2010. Recent solo exhibitions of Akashi’s work include ‘Long Exposure’ at SculptureCenter, Queens, NY, USA (2017), and ‘Cultivator’, a commissioned sculpture at the Aspen Art Museum (2020). Her ten year survey, ‘Formations’, began at the San José Museum of Art in 2022, traveled to the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and then to the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, on view through 2024. ‘Kelly Akashi: Encounters’ at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle was on view from September 30, 2023 - June 15, 2024. Recent group exhibitions include ‘Ecstatic: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection’, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2023); ‘Ground/work’ at Clark Institute, Williamston, MA, USA (2020); ‘Possessed’, MO.CO Panacée, Montpellier, France; ‘Take Me (I’m Yours)’, The Jewish Museum, New York, NY, USA (2016); and ‘Made in LA: a, the, though, only’, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA (2016). 

Akashi’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY, USA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA, USA; Sifang Museum, Nanjing, China, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and X Museum, Beijing, China, among others.

Recent, current and forthcoming projects

'Kelly Akashi. Converging Figures' Fondazione Furla Galleria d’Arte Moderna, curated by Bruna Roccasalva (13 September - 8 December 2024)

'Spirit House' Cantor Arts Center (4 September 2024 - 26 January 2025)

'A Garden of Promise and Dissent' The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (17 November 2024 - November 2025)

Cosmos, 2023

Kelly Akashi
Cosmos, 2023

Lost-wax cast bronze, flame-worked borosilicate
38.1 x 15.2 x 14 cm
15 x 6 x 5 1/2 in

Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

Kelly Akashi
Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

San José Museum of Art, 3 September – 23 April, 2023.

Time Twine (Illuminated Manzanita), 2023

Kelly Akashi
Time Twine (Illuminated Manzanita), 2023

Hand-blown glass, sand-blasted stainless steel, candelabra light bulbs, and electrical hardware

67 H x 53 W x 31.5 D inches

Life Forms, 2023

Kelly Akashi
Life Forms, 2023

Iris Amber Bubble with Bronze Hand,

26.7 x 21.6 x 20.3 cm
10 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 8 in

Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

Kelly Akashi
Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

San José Museum of Art, 3 September – 23 April, 2023.

Heirloom, 2022

Kelly Akashi
Heirloom, 2022

Lost-wax cast and wire brushed bronze
10¼ x 105½ x 44⅞ in.
26 x 268 x 114 cm.
 

Time Twine (Lily), 2022

Kelly Akashi
Time Twine (Lily), 2022

Hand-blown glass, sand-blasted stainless steel
30¼ x 40⅛ x 33⅞ in.
77 x 102 x 86 cm.

Illuminated Life Forms, 2019

Kelly Akashi
Illuminated Life Forms, 2019

Lost-wax cast bronze, beeswax and wick
 

Formation, 2023

Kelly Akashi
Formation, 2023

Crystallograph in aluminum artist's frame
56.2 x 46.7 x 3.8 cm
22 1/8 x 18 3/8 x 1 1/2 in

Well(-)Hung, 2017/2022

Kelly Akashi
Well(-)Hung, 2017/2022

Lost-wax cast bronze, pigmented silicone, red onion skin, rope
Dimensions variable

Well(-)Hung, 2017/2022 (detail)

Kelly Akashi
Well(-)Hung, 2017/2022 (detail)

Lost-wax cast bronze, pigmented silicone, red onion skin, rope
Dimensions variable

Time Twine (Red Poppy), 2022

Kelly Akashi
Time Twine (Red Poppy), 2022

hand-blown glass, sand-blasted stainless steel, rope
47¼ x 57⅞ x 12⅝ in.
120 x 147 x 32 cm.

Installation view of Kelly Akashi: a thing among things

Kelly Akashi
Installation view of Kelly Akashi: a thing among things

ARCH Athens, 2019. 
 

Witness, 2022

Kelly Akashi
Witness, 2022

Gelatin silver print mounted on aluminum in hand patinaed aluminum artist’s frame Edition of 2, 1 APs
62.5 x 41.25 inches
158.75 x 104.75 cm.

Fractured Thigh-Tooth, 2022

Kelly Akashi
Fractured Thigh-Tooth, 2022

Carved and polished onyx
8¼ x 20½ x 14⅛ in.
21 x 52 x 36 cm.

Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

Kelly Akashi
Installation view of Kelly Akashi: Formations

Frye Art Museum, Seattle, June 17–September 3, 2023. 

Exhibitions

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