Solo show: Ai Kijima (over)

	Ai Kijima Beep mixed media, 81 x 95 cm 2008

hilger contemporary hilger contemporary Dorotheergasse 5 A-1010 Vienna Austria (city map) Send E-mail tel +43 (0)1 - 512 53 15 30 www.hilger.at

The Japanese virtuoso with the sewing machine Ai Kijima was born in Tokyo in 1970. She has lived and worked in New York since 2006. At an early age, Kijima's grandmother taught her how to sew, crochet and knit, and she soondeveloped a life-long love for fabric. Kijima's artwork is notable for her use of appropriation and traditional quilting techniques to create colourful, chaotic fabric collages from materials including bed sheets, vintage kimonos, T-shirts, picnic blankets, curtains, pillowcases and dishcloths. Many of Kijima's works incorporate familiar pop culture iconography in ambiguous, often poetic, ways. Kijima is of the opinion that her quilts represent mechanisms which guarantee that pop culture is everywhere accessible in a globalized world like ours and provide the same or similar icons.