Hana Usui

Bei uns

Spuren der Diskriminierung im urbanen Raum

Hana Usuis Semiotik der Ausgrenzung

“An artless truth about an evil, about a vulgarity, is an evil, a vulgarity. She has to be valuable to herself: then she balances the evil, reconciled with the hurt the victim suffers, and the pain of having evil.” Karl Kraus

With “Bei uns”, her first solo exhibition at WOP – Works on Paper, Hana Usui (born 1974, Tokyo) continues her work on political and sociocritical issues, which she started in 2014. In the works that have emerged since then, she takes up her long-standing practice of abstract drawing, but always looks for new ways and forms to reflect difficult topics that move her personally. In doing so, Usui does not act in a frontal or merely documentary manner, but creates ciphered and elaborate works that broaden their artistic practice towards sculpture or photography.

Hana Usui was born in Tokyo in 1974 and studied calligraphy with famous Japanese masters as a child. In 1999 she dissolves completely from the character and works only on image surfaces with ink, otherwise with oil paint. For the oil breaks in “from us” she uses a technique that she has developed herself, which allows her to draw with a screwdriver by firmly pressing the paper on an oil-painted surface to create forms. Usui’s works are part of important international collections such as the Albertina, the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg or the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Dr. Klaus Speidel