A2Z Art Gallery held solo exhibition of the series "Pig Nation – A story of humanity" in Hong Kong and Paris in January 2019.This series uses pig icons as a metaphor, to discuss social matters dear to artist's heart, through the pig characters abstracted journeys into topical situations a message is conveyed. It's as if they are seen to be cohabiting, living on in communities despite having gender, race, and health conditions.

Without specific reference to neutral shapes,Takashi Hara as a painter takes influencefrom the abstract expressionists of the post war era and produces predominantly abstract surrealist paintings. In the Pig Nation series his works mostly depict pig figures and are ultimately generated from the unconscious mind.Takashi Hara conjures these social settings or surrealistic places for the twisted and distorted pig characters placing them in various social situations and uncovering different topics, broadly relatable and important to humanity. Channelling such energy to create narratives that speak to society and by rejecting geometric shapes in favour of natural forms the artist seeks to visually impact the emotive state of his audience.

The artist's works show a deep emotional connection with humanity, positioning his symbolic pig characters in settings that unsettle the dust on some situations shedding light on to others and causing a deeper level of audience engagement. Often each artwork is created with a unique pig character. Occasionally Hara creates the surrealist environment without including a pig character and the same effect is always present, in fact when the characters are missing their presence is still clearly felt and the viewers are urged to discover their whereabouts or purpose, in the same way.

Gestural, abstract expressionistic portraits and surrealist paintings featuring individual pigs, each with it's own DNA like characteristics, personalisation's, unique features, body shape or figurative forms. The icons are imperfect; in terms of setting and foreshortening the artist opts for abstraction and naturalistic application to his technique echoing the reality that life is also not perfect and neither is society.

Takashi Hara is extremely confident with his creative process, on occasion the use of a paintbrush is abandoned in order to devise unconventional textures, utilising finger painting techniques or other unorthodox applications, that allow him to manipulate the materials creating layers and dimensions of figuration or effects that would otherwise not be achievable.The distortion of the Suidae subjects serves to capture the audience's insight and interpretation of the artworks portrayal.

As with the Surrealists who sought to channel the unconscious,Takashi refuses to be weighed down by taboos.The power of his personal imagination that dreams up topical narratives and the scenes he creates for the pig figures to explore draws us all along on their journey with them.

Text courtesy A2Z Art Gallery.