About
Rinoi Imada is an interdisciplinary artist whose ideas are inspired by glass, utilizing glass as a material and thinking tools to create her works. Drawn from a curiosity in the rich subtlety of human experience, her practice takes in various sculptural relationships with glass and glass related processes to explore languages that are easily dismissed, ignored and unseen through our lifetime. Imada earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in Glass from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2021 and is continuing her career as a visual artist and a glass blower. She has received awards and residency opportunities from RIT, Penland School of Craft in North Carolina and GlazenHuis in Lommel, Belgium in addition to others.
1995年生まれ。14歳の時に埼玉県川越市の吹きガラス工房glass Art Blue moonにて吹きガラスに出会い、その後1年間講座を受講し、神奈川県川崎市の吹きガラス工房彩グラススタジオにて川上貴久氏、森崎かおる氏、伊藤けんじ氏から指導を受ける。高校卒業後アメリカに渡り、カリフォルニア州立大学サンバーナディノ校にて2015年から2019年に卒業するまでキャサリン・グレイ教授の元で指導を受け、同教授のアシスタントも務める。2019年から2021年ロチェスター工科大学大学院にて修士号を取得。その後は1年間アメリカで社会人経験をしたのち日本に帰国。
言語に基づくアイデンティティ、感情の刹那を切り取ることをテーマに現在ガラス、写真などを中心に制作を続けている
Statement
I have been a student most of my life. I went almost straight up from elementary school to graduate school. There was nothing to worry about in my real life and I believed I was always on track for success. Since I graduated from school a year ago and began working as a production worker in a glass hotshop, there has been a new emotion rising inside of myself. I felt anxious about my life as a gear of society and I felt suddenly frantic.
I’ve met conflicts from being a female glass blower in a workplace. Even if a woman has the skills to compete with a man, she is not treated the same as a man. People gave me several “fair” reasons to not allow me and other women to try new things. I have seen a “glass ceiling”. I’ve found there is an emotion in myself which is like a thin glass needle stabbing my finger. I can hardly find where the pain is coming from. I often leave random scribbles and written gibberish of these disruptions on cellphone, and sticky notes. It is for clearing my mind and finding “the needle”, yet these notes are easily dismissed, forgotten and unseen. But once the language was made it ambiguously and imperfectly recalled my memory and emotion to find what is the actual language I am looking for.
My current body of work is about the exploration of seeking a language of emotional disruptions I hardly verbalize. Not only the written and spoken words, but also I consider a language as the gestures that are attached with emotions. Is there only one way to describe a phenomenon? I always cannot pick one. Does it transform? I believe a language has a fluidity and it changes like we grow and decay. Being a glass blower, I see the fluidity of language in glass by utilizing the malleable state of glass. Although glass is not visually present in my work, I am inspired by its materiality of impermanence.
December 2022
アメリカで吹きガラスで制作していく面で「ガラスの天井」を意識する機会が多くあった。これまでの人生を学校という守られた教育機関で過ごしてきた中、卒業後吹きガラスの製作工場に就職したが男性と女性という違いから技術は同程度にあっても工場からは不平等に扱われることが多くあった。暖かな、開放的な環境でガラスで制作をしてきたわたしには小さな衝撃だった。
わたしの中でチクチクと胸を刺すわずかな、言葉にもすることができないような目には見えない違和感。人にあまり見せたくはないけれど、少しだけ知ってほしいというような矛盾した感情。人の記憶や感情が変化し消えていく刹那。わたしはそれらを言語(ガラス)を使い表現する。工芸作品として扱われることが多いガラスという素材をコンセプトの一部として捉え、ガラスの特性をわたしたちが普段使う言葉や仕草と重ね合わせた作品を制作している。
July 2023
CV
Education
Rochester Institute of Technology- Rochester, NY
Master of Fine Arts in Glass, 2021
California State University San Bernardino- San Bernardino, CA
Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, 2019 with Honors of Arts
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2023 “Ligne“, Atelier AR, Asakusabashi, Tokyo
2021 “Ambiguity” MFA Thesis Exhibition, The Yards Collective
2019 “Handful of Life”, Little Gallery of San Bernardino, CA
2019 “Dialogue”, Gallery 106, California State University San Bernardino, CA
Juried/Group Exhibitions
2023 Craft Competition in Takaoka, Takaoka, Toyama, Japan
Sanyo Onoda Contemporary Glass Art Exhibition, Sanyo Onoda, Yamaguchi, Japan
International Biennial of Glass, Sofia, Bulgaria
Glass, Meet the Future 23 Film Festival with Mils Bridgewater and Michaela Tkadleček, North Lands Creative, Scotland, the United Kingdom
2022 American Craft Council’s School-to-Market, presenter in American Craft Made Baltimore, MD
“Emerging” Womenswork.art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY
2021 RIT MFA Thesis Exhibition, RIT City Art Space
2020 Graduate Education Week Showcase: The College of Art and Design's Virtual Visual Exhibition
Glass Art Society international student exhibition at GAS 2020 Virtual Conference
2019 19th Annual Fine Craft Show, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
49th Annual Student Art Exhibition, Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, California State University San Bernardino, CA
2018 “HERstories”, Group exhibition at Gallery 106, California State University San Bernardino, CA
48th Annual Student Art Exhibition, Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, California State University San Bernardino, CA
Glass Art Society international student exhibition, Murano, Italy
Artist Talk
2023 Artist Lecture, Academie Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium
2021 Connected in Glass Podcast, Season 3, Episode 2 “Rinoi Imada“
2020 Graduate Education Week Showcase: The College of Art and Design's Virtual Visual Exhibition, RIT, Rochester, NY
GAS Student Meetup: “Graduate Student Pecha-kuchas”
Awards/Residencies
2023 Olympic Color Rods Artist Appreciation Award, Seattle, WA
GlazenHuis Hot Glass Residency, GlazenHuis, Lommel, Belgium
Merit-Based Fellowship, Penland Winter Residency, Penland, NC
2022 Nominee, Louis Comfort Tiffany Biennial Award, New York, NY
2020 Best in Show, Graduate Education Week Showcase: The College of Art and Design's Virtual Visual Exhibition, RIT, Rochester, NY
Aaron Rosenstreich Memorial Book Award, RIT, Rochester, NY
Annual Merit Scholarship, RIT, Rochester, NY
2019 Nomura Foundation Scholarship, Tokyo, Japan
President’s Purchase Award, 49th Annual Student Art Exhibition, Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art, CSUSB, San Bernardino, CA
Certificate of Achievement for Outstanding Use of Glass as a Sculptural Material, CSUSB, San Bernardino, CA
Department Honors with Arts, CSUSB, CA
Annual Merit Scholarship, RIT, Rochester, NY