Hidenori Ishii’s work investigates the paradoxical dichotomy of civilization and nature through the interdependence which lies in between. The artist reveals a tenuous axis on which the two worlds serendipitously coexist, merging past and future onto a single plane.

Ishii’s abstractions in painting and installation invert binaries of nature and camouflage, disaster and neglect, artificiality and object. They are characterized by such negations; images materialize from obstruction and walls eradicate structure. Just as the visible and concealed fluctuate, the work wavers from completion - as though it is still growing, eroding, or waiting for the reflection to break on the water’s surface.

The narrative of Ishii’s work exists within a margin of disbelief, reminding us that fiction diverges from fact. His earlier project, ​IcePlants​, was a direct response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown and considered how beauty might persist as landscape turns mutant. The possibilities presented in Ishii’s work suggest how we might connect political ecology and social consciousness to face our current climactic crisis.

Ishii was born and raised in Yonezawa, Japan. His interest in environmental science brought him to study at university in the US. He is a graduate of the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Joan Mitchell MFA Fellowship Nominee. His work has been exhibited widely in numerous group and solo exhibitions in the United States. He currently lives and works in New York.