Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2011

After being featured in Europe’s unusual bi-national JapanCongo exhibition, painter and sculptor Asuka Ito returns home for her first major solo exhibition. In “Yokubo to Iu Na no Watashi” (roughly “The ‘Me’ Called Appetite”) Ito liberates herself from the constraints of daily manners and—with herself as model—expresses her sexual fantasies via art. With her preoccupations with cosplay, bondage, pop culture and illustration, the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts graduate possesses all the requisites to endear her to overseas cognoscenti of Japanese contemporary art.

Galerie Sho, until Jan 14 (listing).