Aoyama Satoru graduated in 1998 from Goldsmiths College, University of London, with a BA in textile art. In 2001, he completed an MFA in fiber and material studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His early practice focused almost entirely on two-dimensional embroidery works, though his recent output has also included sculptural pieces. His elaborate works made using the industrial sewing machines emblematic of the labor of the Industrial Revolution frequently encompass satire and humor. Aoyama often references the ideas of William Morris, the socialist thinker and founder of the Arts and Crafts movement that aimed to revive handicrafts and bring about social reform, even to the extent of directly quoting Morris’s hope that “the waste of labour power would come to an end.” In this way, the artist explores the relationship between people, machines, and labor within the capitalist system.

Painstakingly sewn with photorealistic detail, the “Glitter Pieces” series (2008-2010) features an image transferred to a piece of organdy fabric, on which Aoyama uses colored metallic thread and black thread, switching the color of the needle and bobbin threads every few stitches to adjust the hues and bring out the shading. The images are based on photographs Aoyama selected from the magazine Newsweek or on what was coincidentally printed on the reverse of those photographs, with both exhibited together as pairs placed back to back. As is evident from the subjects of the photographs he chose - the founding members of Microsoft (Glitter Pieces #15), a house bought with a subprime mortgage (Glitter Pieces #21), and the bankruptcy of General Motors (Glitter Pieces #34) - Aoyama made the series with economic crises of the 2000s in mind like the collapse of the dotcom bubble and the global financial crisis. Devoting immense amounts of time and effort to completing the works, Aoyama is raising questions about our current circumstances in which workers and labor are less and less visible beneath an increasingly virtual capitalism, and workers are easily deprived of their positions.