LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kayne Griffin is presenting Pranayama (Monolith, F, Rose Quartz), a project with New York-based artist Mika Tajima presented in the gallery’s courtyard.

The Pranayama series is a group of sculptures carved from solid materials that have been punctured by bronze nozzles cast from actual Jacuzzi jets in a diagram of bodily pressure points, connoting a release of energy and the potential for output and flow. Pranayama refers to breathing exercises which control the flow of prana or life energy. While other works from the Pranayama series have involved intricate forms deeply carved into wood or marble, this latest monolithic work is crafted from Rose Quartz; this will be the first time Tajima uses this material. Rose Quartz was selected as a material for its physical properties and ability to transform bodily energy, generate electricity, and regulate time keeping. Like previous works in the Pranayama series, this new piece evokes the external imperative to reform the body in relation with the spiritual practice of ‘opening’ the body through internal regulation.

Using the mediums of sculpture, painting, and installation, Mika Tajima’s work is about control, performance, and freedom. She analyzes the evolving and amorphous zones that intersect productivity and leisure, examining how human behavior and emotional experiences have been transformed within the long sweep of capitalist development. Tajima’s research-based practice explores the technologies and ideologies that shape human behavior through conditioning everyday life..

Mika Tajima was born in Los Angeles, CA lives and works in New York, NY. She holds a BA in Fine Arts and East Asian Studies from Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, and an MFA from Columbia University, School of the Arts, New York, NY. Selected exhibitions include: Æther at Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul, Turkey; TOUCHLESS, Taro Nasu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Dirty Protests, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Programmed, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; COLORI, Castello di Rivoli and GAM, Torino, Italy; All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; Meridian (Gold), Sculpture Center, New York, NY. Public collections include: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Albright-Know Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.