The Yonder

Her paintings navigate a fine line between figuration and abstraction to dismantle everyday scenes and historical images, untangling the societal roles and expectations that constrain Asian female identity. Quoting images of Japanese woodblock print made by Kitagawa Utamaro, she mixed some fragments of daily scenery living in Boston. Specific brush strokes and marks express her emotional rhythm hidden behind her physical body and are painted through her intuitional dance to spill constrained feelings.

Sayako Hiroi’s artistic endeavors delve into the intricate relationships between the East and the West, as well as the nuanced layers that unfold between men and women. Informed by feminist and anti-orientalism perspectives, she systematically dismantles prevailing images to reconstruct them, challenging deeply ingrained narratives and learned beliefs.
Her paintings navigate the delicate boundary between figuration and abstraction, marked by contoured fragmented bodies with undulating forms and textures. The vivid colors employed capture the essence of modern city life. Expressive brush strokes emanate from a wellspring of emotions, reflecting experiences of humiliation and a sense of worthlessness perpetuated by social constraints. Her gestural painting marks reflect an underlying chaos in real life in Japan, which is modernized and westernized, it is far from the longings the West has and embraces the ambiguity and messiness of the paint itself. Rhythm, tension, loose, flow, and space are embodied inside her physic as the existence and subjection while she quoted music, poems, and books.
Wrestling with distinct personal narratives and relationships, she imbues the manifold layers of her densely worked surfaces with traces of her emotional experience, and body language piled up for a long time based on her experience living in Japan and the West, burying them within the murkiness of the paint. It shows the reality mixing with the traditional and her memories and it is what she is as a Japanese female who wants to be free from status, race, gender, and stereotypical images others cast on her.
In her pursuit to challenge Japanese female stereotypes, she draws upon Ukiyo-e traditions as an act of resistance. Through the deconstruction of figures, historical motifs, and images reinforcing societal constraints, she internalizes and transforms them.