Hiroko Ohno: Event Horizon

(MENAFN- USA Art News) By Hayley Ferber

Brooklyn-based Japanese artist Hiroko Ohno depicts expressions of an interconnected universe, where matter, energy, and time continually shape the world we inhabit. In Event Horizon, a solo exhibition of new paintings at Amos Eno Gallery, Ohno considers the profound relationships linking cosmic phenomena, geological history, and life on Earth.

Humanity's understanding of the universe is continually transformed by new ways of seeing. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, which produced the first image of a black hole in 2019, made visible a phenomenon once considered beyond the reach of observation. For Ohno, the significance of such discoveries raises enduring questions about existence, distance, time, and the relationship between what can be seen and what remains hidden. Rather than illustrating astronomical phenomena, Ohno translates these questions into a visual language of concentric rings, curved lines, luminous surfaces, and material contrasts. Her paintings become sites where scientific observation meets philosophical inquiry, inviting viewers to consider how the universe might be experienced rather than simply understood.

Galaxy: Event Horizon, a massive two-canvas painting measuring 96 by 152 inches, brings together Ohno's investigations into gravity, spacetime, and astronomical distance. Its structure establishes a system of rings and intervals that suggest the immense distances separating celestial bodies. These forms do not simply describe space; they offer a way to contemplate its multiple dimensions. The work suggests that the universe is not experienced from a single fixed vantage point, but through perspectives that are constantly changing.

The curved lines that traverse Ohno's compositions evoke waves of gravity, suggesting the movement and distortion of spacetime around massive celestial bodies. Their fluid trajectories also recall the movement of water, establishing a connection between cosmic forces and familiar earthly phenomena. Waves, tides, and orbital paths become related expressions of movement, each shaped by forces that may be invisible but whose effects are perceptible. In this sense, Ohno's visual language operates between the scientific and the sensory. Her forms suggest the precision of astronomical diagrams while retaining the ambiguity and openness of abstraction.

The exhibition's material vocabulary deepens these connections. Ohno works with traditional Japanese mineral pigments whose origins extend across geological time, incorporating materials such as mica and pigments derived from minerals formed within the Earth over millions of years. Her interest in the natural world also encompasses seashells, coral, and salt-substances shaped by the sea and its complex ecosystems. These materials carry histories that precede human existence, linking the formation of the planet to the conditions that eventually made life possible. They also evoke environments in which life cannot survive in its familiar forms: the vacuum of space, the absence of air, and the extreme conditions surrounding celestial bodies. By bringing these references into dialogue, Ohno considers the continuity between apparently inhospitable cosmic environments and the fragile ecological systems that sustain life on Earth.

The artist's interest in direct observation has been essential to the development of this body of work. Encounters with the sky, including observing the Milky Way during a shower of meteors in upstate New York, further inform her attention to celestial movement and the challenge of registering phenomena that unfold across vast distances and compressed moments of observation. These experiences also reveal a tension between the speed of cosmic events and the limits of human perception. Celestial bodies move continuously, yet their movement may be imperceptible within the duration of a single glance. Telescopes and other instruments help document these processes, transforming fleeting or distant phenomena into images that can be studied over time.

Ohno approaches painting as another means of recording and interpreting movement. Through repeated lines, layered pigments, and sweeping curves, she creates visual structures that hold motion in suspension. The paintings do not freeze the universe so much as offer a momentary encounter with processes that continue beyond the limits of the canvas. The solar system itself offers a way to understand these relationships: the positions and movements of celestial bodies can be calculated for a specific date, locating an individual moment within a much larger system of motion.

The exhibition's references to scientific language further extend this inquiry. Morse-code quotations drawn from the words of scientists introduce another system through which knowledge travels. Morse code transforms language into sequences of signals, making meaning dependent on patterns, intervals, and the ability to interpret them. Like astronomical data translated into images, these coded messages demonstrate how information can cross distances and move between different forms. They also echo the exhibition's broader concern with the relationship between what is communicated and what must be inferred. A signal may be received, but its meaning depends on the observer's ability to recognize and interpret it.

In Event Horizon, the infinite is not presented as something entirely beyond reach. It appears through the material surfaces of paintings, the geometry of concentric rings, the movement of a curved line, and the shifting reflection of light. Each work offers a point of entry into a universe whose structures exceed immediate perception, while reminding us that the distant and the familiar are connected in ways we are only beginning to comprehend. By bringing cosmic scale into intimate visual experience, Ohno invites us to reconsider our place within the universe-not as its center, but as participants in an ongoing, interconnected history of matter, energy, and time.

Exhibition Details

Hiroko Ohno: Event Horizon
October 15–November 15, 2026
Amos Eno Gallery

For more information, visit amoseno and read Space and its Magnificence by Charlotta Kotik, former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

Opening Reception: Friday, October 16, 2026, 6–8 p.m.

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