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Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito — The Philosopher's Stones
Greg Ito

The Philosopher's Stones

2026

The Philosopher's Stones is a compact yet densely layered sculptural assemblage in which Greg Ito folds the language of fine craft into an intimate archive of lived experience. Built from wood, leather, and furniture hardware, the work carries the structural logic of designed objects, while its surfaces of mirrored plexiglass and automotive enamel introduce a reflective, almost cinematic luminosity that pulls the viewer into its interior world. Against this polished formal vocabulary, Ito embeds materials of profound personal specificity: a childhood tumbled rock collection, a bag of gold nuggets saved from early years, miniature dollhouse furniture, a worry stone worn smooth by handling, and a handkerchief sewn from a studio shirt by the artist's mother. The result is a reliquary of sorts, one in which the boundary between sculpture and memory collapses entirely. Ito's practice has long explored how objects carry emotional and psychological weight, and this work pushes that inquiry to an unusually tender register. The philosopher's stone of alchemical tradition was said to transmute base matter into gold, and here the artist literalizes that transformation through biography rather than magic. The childhood gold nuggets and tumbled rocks arrive not as metaphor alone but as actual artifacts rescued from a personal past and recontextualized within a rigorously constructed object. The handkerchief, made by hand and by family, introduces a domestic intimacy that neither sentimentalizes nor overwhelms, instead anchoring the work in something irreducibly human. At 43.2 by 48.3 by 45.7 centimeters, the piece is scaled to be held in attention rather than to command a room, which only intensifies the sense that one is being granted access to something guarded and private. Presented through Superposition and signed by the artist, The Philosopher's Stones represents a particularly cohesive realization of Ito's ongoing investigation into the objects, relationships, and accumulated experiences that constitute a self. For collectors drawn to work that refuses the separation of formal sophistication from personal stakes, this piece offers an unusually direct point of entry into a practice that continues to earn serious critical attention.

Medium
Wood, leather, furniture hardware, mirrored plexiglass, automotive enamel, acrylic, my childhood tumbled rock collection, my childhood bag of gold nuggets, dollhouse furniture, worry stone, studio shirt handkerchief sewn by Mom
Overall
Signed
Yes
Location
Superposition, LOS ANGELES, CA

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About this work

Greg Ito, The Philosopher's Stones, 2026

The Philosopher's Stones is a compact yet densely layered sculptural assemblage in which Greg Ito folds the language of fine craft into an intimate archive of lived experience. Built from wood, leather, and furniture hardware, the work carries the structural logic of designed objects, while its surfaces of mirrored plexiglass and automotive enamel introduce a reflective, almost cinematic luminosity that pulls the viewer into its interior world. Against this polished formal vocabulary, Ito embeds materials of profound personal specificity: a childhood tumbled rock collection, a bag of gold nuggets saved from early years, miniature dollhouse furniture, a worry stone worn smooth by handling, and a handkerchief sewn from a studio shirt by the artist's mother. The result is a reliquary of sorts, one in which the boundary between sculpture and memory collapses entirely. Ito's practice has long explored how objects carry emotional and psychological weight, and this work pushes that inquiry to an unusually tender register. The philosopher's stone of alchemical tradition was said to transmute base matter into gold, and here the artist literalizes that transformation through biography rather than magic. The childhood gold nuggets and tumbled rocks arrive not as metaphor alone but as actual artifacts rescued from a personal past and recontextualized within a rigorously constructed object. The handkerchief, made by hand and by family, introduces a domestic intimacy that neither sentimentalizes nor overwhelms, instead anchoring the work in something irreducibly human. At 43.2 by 48.3 by 45.7 centimeters, the piece is scaled to be held in attention rather than to command a room, which only intensifies the sense that one is being granted access to something guarded and private. Presented through Superposition and signed by the artist, The Philosopher's Stones represents a particularly cohesive realization of Ito's ongoing investigation into the objects, relationships, and accumulated experiences that constitute a self. For collectors drawn to work that refuses the separation of formal sophistication from personal stakes, this piece offers an unusually direct point of entry into a practice that continues to earn serious critical attention.

Medium
Wood, leather, furniture hardware, mirrored plexiglass, automotive enamel, acrylic, my childhood tumbled rock collection, my childhood bag of gold nuggets, dollhouse furniture, worry stone, studio shirt handkerchief sewn by Mom
Dimensions
overall: 43.2 x 48.3 x 45.7 cm
Year
2026
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Superposition, LOS ANGELES, CA

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Collected by

Gavin Kennedy