Tokyo Nakaochiai Gallery
Closes May 28

Tokyo Nakaochiai Gallery (www.nakaochiaigallery.com), once a cake shop on a shopping street, now provides its local community a contemporary art space in an intimate and traditional Japanese setting. Gallery director Julia Barnes recently approached the Japan-based artists Jack McLean and Carly Fischer to create an exhibit inspired by the maps and urban excesses of Tokyo. "Are You Here?" is the result of each artist's interpretation of Barnes' theme. The two worked independently of each other and then merged their results into single installation in the gallery.

McLean, from Glasgow, Scotland, has been in Tokyo for more than a decade performing, sculpting and, in the past couple of years, exhibiting his pen drawings. For "Are You Here?" he drew random scenes that reflect his perspective on mental processes -- the paths thoughts take, how they flow or halt, or, often, how they take you in different directions. For McLean, the exploration of a city is much like that of the mind, and he has done more than 150 drawings of city scenes, each representing an individual "synapse."

Fischer, a native of Melbourne, Australia, uses paper and cards to realistically craft sculptures. For "Are You Here?" she expands on the theme of corporate junk, which appears in her other works, by re-creating masses of cockroaches, discarded ramen bowls, disposable chopsticks and cigarette butts. Fischer observes that the density and distractions of urban living cause such ubiquitous items to meld into the cityscape background. But rather than make a social comment on the volume of waste in Tokyo, her focus is on the city's stimulus overload and plethora of unnoticed, ever-present objects.

For any Tokyoite, "Are You Here?" will feel familiar -- like the city itself, it displays elements of excess and chaos.