Zon Ito
Soft Rock Valley
Zon Ito’s Soft Rocky Valley is embroidery on fabric that tackles the oneiric and the uncanny to bring about visions of the world. One can discern the methods of nihonga painting (the traditional Japanese style that renders landscape and forms out of subtle shadows), but Ito upsets the balance by destroying perspective. His work is staunchly non-narrative. The scene entails embroidered grass, a waterfall, and a floating mountain range. The loose constellation of colored, embroidered wisps defies pictorial or narrative interpretation.
Zon Ito was born in 1971 in Osaka. He graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1996 and currently lives and works in Kyoto. Ito’s fascination for things natural is at the core of his artistic vocabulary, described in a variety of lowbrow media, including drawing, embroidery, book-making, and animation. Ito privileges media that were somewhat peripheral to much 20th-century artistic practice (when embroidery and clay modelling had the stigma of being too crafty), which he employs to create hybrid landscapes and fantastical dream scenes.