Kota Ezawa
Image by Kota Ezawa
STEREO TRASH
Kota Ezawa recreates found images by rendering them with animation software to reduce photographic images to essential shapes and colors. He then presents his altered images in 3D stereoscopic viewers that predate the classic view-master toys, to elevate everyday scenes of trash to a status once reserved for photographs of exotic locales or famous monuments. Ordinary images of street sweepers collecting leaves, or an overflowing dumpster, are made extraordinary through Ezawa’s infusion of color and three dimensions.
Ezawa’s source imagery for Stereo Trash includes representations of staple childhood characters, moments depicting trash in film, and international photographs of both concealed and recognizable aspects of trash processing. Despite the diversity of sources, the images are not intended as a comprehensive representation of the ways individuals live with trash around the world. What Ezawa has done so skillfully, is to create a set of images from which every visitor will discover scenes that are familiar and others that are foreign to their experience of trash. An image of Oscar the Grouch will be an easily identifiable symbol of trash, while a scene taken from an auto-wrecking yard might be unfamiliar, and prompt a child to inquire about what becomes of broken down cars. Similarly, an image of German recycling bins may spark a dialogue among a family about how their recyclables are sorted.
ABOUT KOTA EZAWA
Kota Ezawa received his MFA from Stanford University and BFA from San Francisco Art Institute. He was the recipient of a 2006 SECA Art Award from the SFMOMA and a 2003 Lois Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. Ezawa’s international exhibition history includes solo shows at Matadero in Madrid, Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, The Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, St. Louis Art Museum, and The Hayward Gallery, London, as well as group shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
