A chandelier made out of popsicles.
Hisakazu Shimizu has made it his job to take ordinary items from day-to-day life and reshape them. As an industrial design artist at Canon, he has done this with his designs for popular cameras such as the Canon IXY. On the side, however, he does his own artwork, and seeks to bring through his own vision with his innovative works.
For his latest exhibition, Shimizu has taken popsicles and made them into works of art. His “The Things We Love” show at the SFT Gallery showcases artwork created out of ice cream spoons and Japanese style popsicles – ordinary, but that’s the point. Shimizu hopes that by taking these everyday items he can stir things up and in turn affect the viewer. He wants to resurrect the simple and powerful memories in the back of our minds that such items can evoke.
Shimizu also uses ice cream spoons in his work.
The title for the exhibition, “The Things We Love,” is a play on the similarity between the words for “love” and “ice,” ai and aisu. Aptly named, since “love” is precisely one of the emotions Shimizu aims to play off of with his work.
Natalie Meyer