Daisuke Shimodaira

I use waste materials from factories and scrap metal from when machines are disassembled. The secret is to gather parts in pairs of two since robots tend to have bilateral symmetry. I connect the parts using screws. I don’t use welding or any form of adhesives. I play around with the proportions, and assemble and disassemble the model many times over before coming up with the final build. Using screws is essential to be able to do this. I fit the pieces together without drawing any blueprints. I think about the structure in my head and I disassemble it. I then find parts to fit with the disassembled parts and I rebuild it. Lastly, I create the joints, and I’m done.

1986: Born in Nagano
2008: gt.moo Collection 08 (gt.moo gallery)
2009: June BRIGHT!! (gt.moo gallery)、Niigata Art Exhibition Sculpture Category Mayor’s Prize
2010: Daisuke Shimodaira Exhibit (Hitsuji-Garo)
2011: Daisuke Shimodaira Exhibit (Hitsuji-Garo)
GEISAI Prize Winner Exhibit (Hidari Zingaro)
NCAD Alumni Exhibition (Harajuku Art in Gallery)
2012: Houga Exhibit (Turner Gallery)
DOLL EXPO 2012 Large Doll Exhibit Award for Excellence
　　　 Daisuke Shimodaira Exhibit (Gallery Saihodo)
＋PLUS THE ART FAIR 003 (Aoyama Spiral Hall)
GEISAI Prize Winner Exhibit (Hidari Zingaro)
2013: Daisuke Shimodaira Exhibit (EDEN Sendai)
2014: Japan’s Creative Doll Artist Exhibit (Art Museum “Eki” Kyoto)

2012: Creative Meeting (Niigata College of Art & Design)
2013: Creative Meeting (Niigata College of Art & Design)
“Wings to Your Dreams” (Niigata Makinishi Private Middle School)

I have a consignment sale of a portion of my work at Gallery Saihodo. For those that want to buy my work, please contact me at the email address below.
saihodo@mba.nifty.ne.jp

I am currently not accepting custom orders. When I reopen custom orders, I will announce it.

Daisuke Shimodaira, born in 1986, Nagano prefecture. He is a junk artist who reuses scrap parts, an artist with great knowledge. Influenced by his blacksmith grandfather, he specializes in handling iron materials, but is also skilled in the application of animal bones and other raw materials. He received awards at “gt.moo Collection 08” (gt.moo gallery) and “Niigata Art Exhibition Sculpture Category” from a young age and also opened his own exhibition at Hitsuji Art Gallery. He is gathering attention from TV and other media.

Shimodaira’s starting point for creating his art was in technical high school. After accidentally finding a shuttle at the dump site, he discovered the approach method toward iron.

His turning point among his works was “Giant” (2007). It is about 20 cm tall, and it expresses the physical sturdiness given to humans by mythical giants and the image of fear. It created new values and it was a dramatic rebirth as an information lifeform. It is the admiration of eternal youth and longevity. It feels as if the fear of death is softened. His thoughts about his work whirling, he experienced crossing his imagination and limits for the first time. Afterward, he started walking his path as an artist.

The main material he uses for his creations is junk parts scattered around any ordinary dump site. He collects and uses parts of various products such as buildings, heavy equipment, cars and electrical appliances. With the industrial and information society as a background, he makes one assembly from the DNA (memories) of industrial machine parts that industrial workers had poured a huge amount of time and labor into, and breathes life into it.

written by essayist Kouji Sakurai

Most of Daisuke Shimodaira’s art is so-called “junk art.” People who glance at these works probably have the impression that they are well made and elaborate. The viewpoint that perceives his art as “a kind of real-life model kit” isn’t necessarily mistaken. However, that is not all.

Only if one looks at his works with his opinion on life and death in mind can he get close to the abyss of Shimodaira’s works. In some cases, it can become a mirror that reflects the viewer’s own view on death, thus the viewer is able to glance at “a being beyond life or death that offers death as nourishment.”

There is another keyword equally important to the viewer’s “views on death,” it is key to understanding his works as “shiftup.” Shiftup refers to the act of shifting gears when driving a car with manual transmission. Shimodaira succeeds in blending the act of shiftup into his art. With junk parts that were considered scrap, he transforms dead bodies with different cells and DNA into “something richer” without rejection (Shimodaira himself calls this “the traffic control of the dead”). What awaits after the transformation that surpasses life and death, that is only known to the viewer.

On the contrary, changing to a slower gear is also called shiftup. There might be people who
feel the presence of an ancient world, impermanence, or the origin of the seeds. Where do living things come from? Where were they born? It is just like falling into an optical illusion of peeping at one end of the cycle of living beings’ life and death and natural environment.

I would also like to emphasize the expression of details. The completed internal organs, bones and muscles ooze out a presence as if they were about to move. On the other hand,
by including mobile appliance components such as engines and cooling devices, Shimodaira implements the science fiction-like concept of half organic, half mechanic. The word shiftup is also used in SF terminology, it means an intelligent life form advances to the next stage of evolution within its group. Shimodaira refers to his production process as “watching over evolution.” This makes it apparent that the word shiftup has multiple meanings and it plays an important role in comprehending his work.

It is difficult to decide whether his works are alive or dead or machines. Maybe it would be better to accept that they are “alive and dead at the same time” and frankly accept them as “robots that perform a shiftup to overcome life and death,” going against nature’s rules. It is self-contradictory cubism that uses life and death as its motif. A spiritual revolution. Daisuke Shimodaira invites people to a state of mind no human has experienced, to a catharsis that crosses the borderline between life and death.

written by essayist Kouji Sakurai