Hiromi Mizugai Moneyhun: Bound and Unbound

Eli Klein Gallery is pleased to present “Hiromi Mizugai Moneyhun: Bound and Unbound,” a solo exhibition by the Kyoto-born, Jacksonville-based artist. Rooted in kirie, the Japanese tradition of paper cutting, Moneyhun’s practice redefines the act of cutting as a generative process, transforming negative space into an integral element of sculptural form.

Born in 1977 in Kyoto, Japan, Moneyhun is a self-taught artist whose intricate paper cuttings merge traditional Japanese art forms, particularly kirie, with folkloric motifs and contemporary Japanese culture. Each work begins as a freehand drawing before being meticulously cut from a single sheet of paper, a labor-intensive process that can take weeks or even months to complete. These delicate incisions allow the compositions to interact with light, air, and their surrounding spaces, occupying a liminal space between drawing and sculpture. Through the interplay of light and shadow, Moneyhun lends her works a sense of weightlessness that belies their painstaking construction.

In her new series SHIBARI 結 Musubi, which is named after the Japanese practice of knotting and tying, Moneyhun transforms white paper into interlocking forms that evoke the fluidity of bound rope. Her delicate cuttings intertwine and overlap, where knots, twists, and entanglements oscillate and warp into one another. Suspended slightly away from the wall, the sculptures cast shadows that echo their negative space. Moneyhun’s work thus assumes a dual form: one defined by the tangibility of hand-cut paper, the other by its immaterial projection through light.

In her earlier works, Moneyhun incorporates gold leaf, adding a luminous touch to her paper works. She imposes a symmetry upon her figures and faces, lending them a ceremonial, icon-like presence. In Untitled 2,  two identical human faces emerge symmetrically from an arrangement of organic and ornamental forms. Set against a contrasting white ground, Moneyhun embellishes her black paper cutting with accents of gold leaf, creating a fine interplay of light, texture, and form. The symmetrical faces appear to emerge from the very forms that engulf them, suggesting a perpetual process of formation and transformation.

In YŪREI, a woman's face materializes amongst a cascade of feathers reminiscent of a peacock’s plumage. The wing-like forms initially take the shape of a roaring flame, and ultimately descend into flowing braids of human hair. The female subject recalls the Japanese folklore iconography of the yūrei, commonly known as phantoms with long, unbound hair. Her face appears simultaneously engulfed by and struggling to escape the forms that surround her, and it is through this tension that Moneyhun evokes the transitory existence of the yūrei, suspended in a liminal space between life and death.

Bound and Unbound explores the paradox of cutting, where each incision simultaneously removes and creates. By transforming negative space into a dynamic sculptural presence, Moneyhun extends an ordinary medium—paper—beyond its material limits.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated digital catalogue featuring an essay by Aaron Levi Garvey, Director of the Art Museum of West Virginia University.