Ronchini to present Analog Death, etc., their third solo exhibition featuring new works by the New York based artist, Jacob Hashimoto.
Developed across a body of work spanning the past three years, in these works, Hashimoto responds to current events in an abstracted nuanced manner physically manifested by his iconic, delicately layered, and elegant kite-based works.
In this series of works, while the compositions on the kites remain intricately layered and meticulously assembled by hand, the introduction of a laser-cuter into the studio has allowed the artist to revisit ideas gathered over the years. This new precision-cuting process enables the realization of compositions that were previously too intricate to be cut by hand.
As Hashimoto’s practice continues to evolve, bridging the gap between the tactile and the technological, the compositions chart a both poetic and chaotic cartography of memory and meaning. The works simultaneously embody a portrait of the artist’s mind and a refection of broader existential concerns. Hashimoto masterfully turns a single moment into a gesture.
Analog Death, etc. draws inspiration from disparate sources such as: satellite arrays, the scorched earth of the Californian wildfres, and decaying infrastructure glimpsed on a tarmac in Düsseldorf. These fragments form visual records of moments which the artist translates into intricate paterns, kaleidoscopic bloom, and pixelated paterns, which transcend their origin to create exquisite, stylised compositions.
Full of layers both conceptually and physically Hashimoto notes:
“It’s an open system. Things may read diferently depending on what people bring to them.”
Hashimoto’s open system of visual language allows for an accessible, and democratic reading of the works, as his methodology —the kites themselves— belong to no one and to everyone. Echoing a childlike universality that taps into the collective imagination, the kites go beyond the specifcity of medium or message, enabling the artist to explore the erosion of childlike wonder in contemporary society. In a world increasingly fxated with resolution, certainty, and fact-checking, Hashimoto refects on the loss of the sublime by striving to rekindle that sense of wonder and ambiguity in the works.
Analog Death, etc. is a celebration of a constellation of moments that revives the feeling of what it means to not know; a celebration of the innocent and pure magic of belief, in the hopes that in this space, perhaps, the sublime survives.
This exhibition also marks the end of Ronchini’s time at 22 Dering Street, closing a remarkable chapter afer 13 years. Ronchini are moving to a new Mayfair location this autumn.
Jacob Hashimoto: Analog Death, etc. 23rd May – 27th June 2025, Ronchini
PREVIEW: 22nd May 2025, 6PM-8PM
About the Artist
Jacob Hashimoto (b 1973, Greeley, Colorado) Lives in New York City.
Hashimoto simulates nature without purporting to replicate it. Based in New York and of Japanese decent, Hashimoto redefines Japanese screen painting with his assemblages of paper “kites” in undulating, interactive compositions.
Hashimoto’s artwork embodies his longtime fascination with the intersections of painting and sculpture, abstraction and landscape. Each work is comprised of hundreds of small bamboo and paper kite-like elements. These kite elements are strung together in chains, and layers of these chains are stretched taught between short dowels that project from wall-mounted brackets, creating a densely layered and fragmented tapestry of image or pattern.
The elements forming these tapestries are a solid color of paper, or a complex, collaged pattern of multicolored cut paper. While the individual components remain more or less abstract, overall, clusters of pattern, stripes, or waves of color are formed, giving the works a pictorial quality that suggests organic forms, vistas, scrolling video games, or even board games. Through this unique process Hashimoto’s works convey an ephemeral wonder, entrancing the viewer with their continuously shifting illusion of light, space, motion, and sense of flight. Hashimoto’s working method is very open-ended, allowing him to sample art-historical references, icons of the every-day, and mismatched narratives within each composition. More
