SUNDAY is pleased to announce the participation of Asuka Ohsaswa in the Deitch Art Parade 2007 on Saturday, September 8th at 4 PM along West Broadway in Soho. Details at: www.deitchprojects.com

The artist's ambitious project entitled Little Red Riding Hood’s Scooter Squad will consist of handmade wooden scooters, each decorated with hand-cut vinyl stencils, and an army of fifteen or more characters of all shapes and sizes dressed in Little Red Riding Hood costumes. The scooters will be available for purchase after the event, as well as gouache studies and a limited edition T-shirt.

Asuka Ohsawa’s affinity with fairy tales and fantasy literature began early in her youth. As a child, she not only read her favorite stories obsessively, but she also took pleasure in recasting the stories that she knew by heart, taking characters and plots from different sources and mixing them together to make tales of her own. Ohsawa came back to the world of fairy tales well into her adulthood largely because she has come to acknowledge the undeniable influence of the childhood pastime upon her creative practice. The desire to revisit the process of creating homespun tales, incorporating the point of view of an adult female, underlies the artist’s current body of work.

The artist believes that one of the most remarkable properties of fairy tales is their ability to “adapt to the ever-shifting time, culture, and environment, spawning a multitude of reincarnations in every generation,”and one of her favorites stories of all time, Little Red Riding Hood, is no exception. “From an innocent little girl to a lesbian S&M porn star, the beloved heroine in a red cape has gone through a succession of transformations during the past centuries, and in each disguise she delights us as she warns us about different meanings and morals,” says Ohsawa of Little Red Riding Hood. Ohsawa’s versions of the tale begin where the Brothers Grimm left off. She feels that the Grimms’ tale conveys a moral lesson of obedience, especially for young girls: it teaches young girls to be smart, resourceful, and self-reliant. Though a series of drawings and other mediums, the artist explores the life of Little Red Riding Hood who has grown more mature and wiser since her unfortunate encounter with murderous Wolf. Little Red Riding Hood’s Scooter Squad is a part of the artist’s ongoing series of narratives, only this time in three-dimensions.

About the artist:

Asuka Ohsawa (b. 1973, Torrance, CA) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received a MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a BFA from California State University, Long Beach. She has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Japanese American Historic Society, San Francisco; the Asian American Arts Centre, New York; Sixspace, Los Angeles; and SUNDAY, New York, among others. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications including: The New York Times, Draft, Art on Paper, The Boston Globe, and Art New England.