Eri Itoi: Chinmi
Analogue Books
Edinburgh, UK
20 April - 19 May 2007

by Rea Cris

Ever since her degree show at the Edinburgh College of Art last year, Japanese artist Eri Itoi has been the personification of the emerging artist, and rightly so.   Represented by David Risley in London, Chimni is her first solo exhibit in Scotland.

Itoi draws meticulously small, so small that Analogue has provided magnifying glasses to view all the exquisite details, yet she herself does not use any such instruments when drawing. Her drawings are not so much drawings of girls wearing a lot of crap but more a world of boho chic items, Hieronymus Boschesque tiny copulating body parts and animals, mutated together to resemble a girl.   They do not have feet but rather birds' nests, rough rope tied around an obi, acorns that are handbags and rabbits whose fur looks just as soft and feathery as their eyelashes. Body parts are composed of other body parts: arms, which are jean-clad legs and ass with a cat's tail, calves that are tree trunks.   Animals feature mainly as hats or growths, sprouting from their heads, looming far forwards. These girls become creatures free from gravity, anatomy or balance. Their expressions are reminiscent of Yoshitomo Nara's drawings of children, but doubtful and desperate.  

These drawings are not Japanese curiosities or aesthetic eye candy á la 'Where's Waldo', but rather a social critique. Itoi describes the girls as having inferiority complexes. They hate their appearance and spend all their thoughts on what people think of them. The drawings are a personal metaphorical vocabulary. We can only guess what each component means to her. The headpieces, which could be either a hat, animal or physical growth, is a metaphor for their individual thoughts.

Having also attended ECA, I cannot help guessing where Itoi might have sourced her muses. She explains that the Japanese word 'Chinmi' usually describes food which you are not used to eating,   have never had before or don't think is edible. It also means delicacy, and in her tiny leaflet she provides us with a definition:   a careful and sensitive way of speaking or behaving so that you do not upset anyone: the quality of being easy to harm, damage or break.   Itoi's drawings might represent fragile individuals on the brink of collapse, both mentally and physically, but Itoi and her art are rocketing in the opposite direction.

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http://www.davidrisleygallery.com/

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