Narratives: Hiro Sakaguchi and Matthew Borgen
December 4th 2021 - January 15th 2022
Gallery Hours: 24/7
miniMAC (miniature Mount Airy Contemporary)
25 West Mt Airy Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19119
www.mountairycontemporary.com
MiniMAC is pleased to announce Narratives, an exhibition of works by Hiro Sakaguchi and Matthew Borgen. Both artists work with popular culture iconography to tell stories about the human experience.
Borgen’s digitally composed works borrow imagery and compositional strategies from comic books produced during the mid-twentieth century, repurposing them to create new, sometimes satiric narratives that critique the original sources’ problematic ideals of Western culture.
Sakaguchi's recent drawing series, “No Particular Place to Go”, turns the journey inward. Made during pandemic, these drawings explore cityscapes where the forest merges with futuristic residential neighborhoods, literally rooted in place.
Hiro Sakaguchi (www.hirosakaguchi.com) (born 1965 in Nagano, Japan) is an artist currently based in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Using memories from his childhood as point of departure, his whimsical paintings and drawings deploy a lexicon of toys and games to confront modern issues such as the environment, world history, and popular culture. Originally from Japan, Sakaguchi moved to Philadelphia in the 1990’s to study at the University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively.
Solo exhibitions include Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine at Seraphin Gallery, Philadelphia; Avert, Escape or Cope With at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art; and No Particular Place to Go at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including at the KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland; the Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo, Japan; Galerie Heubner & Huebner in Frankfurt, Germany; and Nancy Margolis Gallery in New York City. His work may be found in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Woodmere Art Museum, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. In 2021, Sakaguchi was a Joan Mitchell Award nominee and was additionally included in New Grit (Art & Philly Now), the inaugural exhibition within the Daniel W. Dietrich II Gallery at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Matthew Borgen (www.matthewborgen.com) is a native of Akron, Ohio. He was awarded a BFA in drawing from the University of Akron in 1998, and an MFA in painting from the University of Minnesota in 2002.
Since moving to Philadelphia in 2003, Borgen has presented his installations, videos, and digital prints in regional venues including The Woodmere Art Museum, The Fleisher Art Memorial (Wind Challenge), The Abington Art Center; The Barbara Crawford Gallery at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy; Inliquid Gallery; and The Center for Contemporary Art, Bedminster, New Jersey.
Nationally he has been included in exhibitions at The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, Michigan; The 621 Gallery, Tallahassee, Florida; The Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington, Massachusetts; H Gallery, Ventura, California; and Target Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia.
Borgen has served as Exhibitions Coordinator for Arcadia University since 2012. His curatorial projects include exhibitions of preparatory sketches by muralist David Guinn, a survey of the career of mid 20th-century artist John Hathaway, and a presentation of proofs and drawings related to the lithographs of Benton Spruance. Most recently, Borgen organized solo exhibitions of the works of photographer Tamsen Wojtanowski and printmaker Jennifer Manzella.
miniMAC is a project of MAC (Mount Airy Contemporary). MAC has been curating shows in northwest Philadelphia since 2009.
