Tiger Strikes Asteroid Greenville (TSA GVL) is excited to announce their next exhibition, the second one in their new West Greenville gallery space. five, four / yours forever more, a solo exhibition of work by celebrated multi-disciplinary fiber artist H. Mitsu Shimabukuro, will open on August 6 and run until August 28. There will be a First Friday Opening Reception on August 6 from 6 to 9 PM. The show was organized by TSA GVL members Mark Brosseau and Hirona Matsuda.

minsā; itsu no yo made mo
five, four
yours forever more

five, four / yours forever more takes its name from a poem about a tradition of the women of the Yaeyama Islanda who weave a sash - a minsā - and give it to the man that they wish to marry. If the man wears the sash in public it is taken as a sign that he accepts the marriage proposal. The history of this practice is disputed and is said to have been made more fantastic to attract craft enthusiasts from surrounding areas. Mitsu has taken inspiration for this exhibition from both the unreliable historical account of the minsā as well as the material and craft traditions of the physical sash itself.

five, four / yours forever more will feature sculptural fiberworks and photographic prints that are grounded in Mitsu’s experience with attachment trauma and their experience and memory of the place that they grew up - Maui. The brightly-colored pieces are created with a variety of fibers and natural dyeing techniques and decorated with traditional Japanese patterns. The works form an installation that is a space to inhabit and explore the duality and environmental extremes of their childhood home with layers of questions brought on by an internal anthropological survey that investigates ideas of generational trauma, memory loss, and ancestral knowing. The work, while playful in appearance, has the weight of research on serious racial identity and psychological studies of loss. The layers are complex in all facets of the show - the individual pieces, the installation of them, the underlying ideas - and entry into Mitsu’s world gives viewers a chance to sift through their own questions of memory and unconscious loss.

H. Mitsu Shimabukuro was born and raised in Hawaii. They earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Yale University in 2013 and upon completion of their degree worked as the printmaking studio technician for the University of Tennessee School of Art in Knoxville from 2014 – 2017. In 2019, they graduated from the Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts Fiber Program in Clyde, North Carolina. Mitsu has shown nationally and internationally, with shows at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia, as well as the CICA Museum in Gimpo-si, Korea. They have also completed residencies at the KKV Grafik Studio in Malmö, Sweden, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and the Penland School of Craft. Mitsu is currently living and working at the Penland School of Craft as a core fellow.

TSA GVL is located on the second floor at 4 Smith Street in Greenville, SC. The gallery is free and open to the public with regular hours on Friday from 4 - 8 PM and Saturday from 12 - 6 PM, and with the possibility of visiting by appointment. For more information about TSA GVL or this exhibition please contact us at greenville@tigerstrikesasteroid.com. To request an appointment outside of normal gallery hours please email appointments.tsagvl@gmail.com. For the most recent information about this show, our other programming, and possible changes in gallery COVID-19 protocols, please follow @tsa_gvl on Instagram.