Kei Ito

• Name — Kei Ito • Born — 20 February 1991 • Occupation — Visual artist, photographer, installation artist • Known for — Photography, installation art, conceptual art

Ito's work addresses issues of deep intergenerational loss and connections as he explores the materiality and experimental processes of photography, visualizing the invisible: radiation, memory and life/death. Ito's work, fundamentally rooted in the trauma and legacy passed down from his late grandfather (Takeshi Ito)—a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—, meditates on the complexity of his identity and heritage through examining the past and current threats of nuclear disaster and his present status as a US immigrant. Many of Ito's artworks transformed both art and non-art spaces into temporal monuments that became platforms for the audience to explore social issues and the memorials dedicated to the losses suffered from the consequences of those issues.

Ito has shown in over 60 exhibitions worldwide. Among those are solo exhibitions at prominent spaces such as the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art Museum, Winston-Salem, NC; Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, LA; IA&A at Hillyer (Hillyer Art Space), DC; and Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH. Group exhibitions of note include: the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Ethan Cohen KuBe, NY; the Walters Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA; and PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary. 2024 • Staring at the Face of the Sun, Georgia Museum of Art, GA • Echoes of the Invisible, Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute, NY 2023 • The Beginning, In the Land Around Me, Gregory Allicar Museum/Center for Fine Art Photography, CO • Each Tolling Sun, Hilliard Art Museum, LA • Direct Contact: Cameraless Photography Now, Eskenazi Museum of Art, IN 2022 • Teach Me How to Love This World, Stamp Gallery at University of Maryland College Park • The High Wall 2022, Inscape Arts, Washington • The Heart Isn’t Heart-Shaped, Longwood Center for the Visual Arts, VA 2021 • Aborning New Light, Center for Fine Art Photography, Denver, CO • Recovery to Normal Existence, The Halide Project, PA • Our Looming Ground Zero, Creative Alliance, MD • OD Photo Prize 2021, Open Door Gallery, London, UK • This Place is a Message, ArtYard Contemporary Art Center, NJ • Unbound 10!, Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA 2020 • Atomic Sentence, Harmony Hall Regional Center, DC • Darkest Before Dawn: Art in A Time of Uncertainty, Ethan Cohen KuBe, NY • Elongated Shadows, Apexart, NY • What Does Democracy Look Like? Museum of Contemporary Photography, IL • New Talents: 2020, PEP(Photographic Exploration Project), Berlin 2019 • Archives Aflame, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, NC • Out of the Box: Camera-less Photography, The Norton Museum of Art, FL • Ghostly Traces: Memory and Mortality in Contemporary Photography, Vicki Myhren Gallery at University of Denver, CO • Dear Leader, Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA 2018 • InLight Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1708 Gallery, VA • Fotofocus Biennial 2018: Nuclear Fallout, Antioch College, OH • The Noorderlicht Summer: Opera Spanga Aida, Noorderlicht: House of Photography, Netherland • What Keeps You Up at Night, Mendocino College Art Gallery, Ukiah, CA • Afterimage Requiem, Baltimore War Memorial, MD • Only What We Can Carry, IA&A at Hillyer (Hillyer Art Space), DC • Infertile American Dream, 14x48 Art Billboard, 215 Woodpoint Rd, Brooklyn • Atomic Traces, Online sponsored by 14x48.org Art Billboard 2017 • Re:Collection, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago, IL • 3rd International Exhibition on Conceptual Art, CICA Museum, South Korea • 54th Annual Group Exhibition, Masur Museum of Art, LA • Wave Pool 44th Group Exhibition, Field Projects Chelsea Gallery, NY

2025 • Light Work, NY 2024 • Millay Arts Core Residency, NY 2023 • Santa Fe Art Institute, NM: Changing Climate Residency 2022 • FAR & Away Remote AIR at Florida State University 2021 • MASS MoCA Studio Artist in Residency, MA • Denis Roussel Fellowship at the Center for Fine Art Photography, CO 2020 • Marva and John Warnock Biennial AIR, University of Utah, UT 2019 • The Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) Artist in Residency, NY

• 2023 Art on Paper • 2021 Art Miami

• Masters of Fine Arts in Photographic and Electronic Media from the Maryland Institute College of Art, 2016 • Bachelors of Arts in Fine Art Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology, 2014

• Georgia Museum of Art • Eskenazi Museum of Art • Gregory Allicar Museum of Art • Norton Museum of Art • Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago • Center for Photography at Woodstock • Candela Collection • Stamp Gallery at University of Maryland • Rochester Institute of Technology • Maryland Institute College of Art • En Foco • Chroma / California Institute of Integral Studies