unearth | ROH

ROH is pleased to present unearth, a solo exhibition of Kei Imazu’s (b. 1980, Yamaguchi, Japan), for the second time with the gallery since 2018. The exhibition also welcomes contributions by Carlos Quijon, Jr., an art historian, critic, and curator based in Manila, Philippines.

As Quijon, Jr. describes in his essay, “One of the main thematic layers explored in the exhibition is the story of Hainuwele, a woman born from a coconut and who has the power to produce fineries of foreign lands through her own excrement. Men initially found her powers useful until its undeniable mystique disturbed them. Fazed by this mysterious woman and her power, they buried her alive, stomping on the ground until loose dirt became dense earth. Ameta, Hainuwele’s mother figure, learned about Hainuwele’s fate and found her dead body through an oracle. Ameta exhumed her remains, cut the body, and buried different parts of it across the village lands. Hainuwele’s remains transformed into tuberous crops, sustaining the village and the islands of Banda.

Imazu’s effort to reconsider the myth of Hainuwele constitutes a feminist exhumation not only of the mythical figure’s body, but her story as well. The artist mines stories that have been cultivated on this earth–a site of violence and loss, but also emergence and thriving life–to foreground poetics of transformation and metamorphosis. Layer upon layer, Imazu builds on a landscape where myth and history merge and become a method that assembles works and materials that are as varied as the contentious stories to which they allude.”

– Carlos Quijon, Jr.

Born 1980, Yamaguchi, Japan
Lives and works in Bandung, Indonesia

Kei Imazu’s painting practice takes root in the peculiar conditions of the contemporary Internet age, where the visual torrent of information becomes a repository to distort and reassemble. These resulting 3D-renderings and digital sketches, by-products of a saturated image world, serve as sketches for her oil paintings. This approach is shaped by the artist’s archaeological impulse and her interest in the recovery and reconstruction of human lifeworlds from material cultures; since moving to Indonesia in 2018, Imazu’s works have come to address the country’s colonial histories as well as the multiple stories and folklores shared across the archipelago, which often contain parallel themes to global mythological narratives. Recently, Imazu’s practice has expanded to include painted sculptures and installations as sites of recovery and reconstruction, where traces of historical and mythical narratives are bound into new layers of understanding and kinship.

Imazu has held several solo exhibitions including Art Basel Paris: Stratum Vein with ROH at Grand Palais, Paris, France (2024); unearth at ROH, Jakarta, Indonesia (2023); Sowed Them to the Earth at Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2023); Mapping the Land/Body/Stories of its Past at ANOMALY, Tokyo, Japan (2021); Anda disini / You are here at Museum Haus Kasuya, Kanagawa, Japan (2019); Measuring Invisible Distance at Yamamoto Gendai, Tokyo, Japan (2018); and Overgrown at ROH Projects, Jakarta, Indonesia (2018). Her group exhibitions include Bangkok Art Biennale: Nurture Gaia at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Bangkok, Thailand (2024); Frieze Seoul, COEX Convention & Exhibition Center, Seoul, South Korea (2022); WAGIWAGI at documenta fifteen, Hübner areal, Kassel, Germany (2022); Declaring Distance: Bandung — Leiden at Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2022); AAAAHHH!!! Paris Internationale in Paris, France (2018), all featuring her collaborative work with Bagus Pandega; The 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale: silent apple in Changwon, South Korea (2024); Let’s See at ArtSpace @ HeluTrans, Singapore (2024); 1 at ROH, Jakarta, Indonesia (2022); We Paint! at Palais de Beaux-Arts, Paris, France (2022), Last Words at ROH, Jakarta, Indonesia (2021); We Are Here at Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, USA (2021); Tiger Orchid at Art Basel OVR: Miami Beach, ROH Projects (2020); Roppongi Crossing: Connexion at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (2019); Meet the Collection - 30th Anniversary of the Yokohama Museum of Art at Yokohama Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan (2019); and Taming Y/Our Passion at Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Japan (2019); Kei Imazu is the finalist of Prix Jean-François Prat in 2020. Imazu’s works are part of the public collections of various institutions in Japan, among them are MUSEUM HAUS KASUYA in Kanagawa as well as Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, Taguchi Art Collection, and OKETA COLLECTION in Tokyo. Her works are also part of the public collections of San San Jose Museum of Art, California, U.S.A. and X Museum, Beijing, China. Kei Imazu will present her first mid-career survey in the forthcoming solo exhibition Tanah Air at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2025).

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