GROUP SHOW:

Yutaka Aoki expands the scope of painting through an examination of the relationship between painting and the surrounding world, and through the many new possibilities that are born from that exchange. This exploration results in works that migrate freely between two- and three-dimensionality, and in works that respond not only to the material and production process, but also to their relationship with the audience’s gaze. Aoki’s approach also seeks to capture the ever-changing countenance of paintings, articulated as single moments along the axis of time. By repeated experimentation and the application of newly discovered processes, Aoki is continually rediscovering painting itself.

Takuro Kuwata has rapidly expanded the possibilities of ceramic art by creating works of an unparalleled nature that have been exhibited globally in Brussels, London, and New York. Kuwata’s contemporary visual language, which utilizes techniques of traditional Japanese pottery such as kairagi and ishihaze in a novel manner, has garnered international acclaim. Situated at the heart of Japanese ceramic artistry, Kuwata’s studio in the Mino region of Gifu retains history and techniques dating back to feudal Japan. Inheriting the traditional tea ceremony aesthetic of wabi-sabi, his works embrace imperfect beauty and natural forms that are celebrated in the preservation of a rustic, unrefined elegance. Through dialogue with the environment, history, nature, and time, Kuwata fuses together elements of tradition and modernity.

In his practice, Yosuke Takeda investigates what is possible with the medium of photography. In his acclaimed “Digital Flare” series, he captures the phenomenon of flares that appear when a digital camera is facing a strong light. Rather than a genuine subject captured by the camera’s system, a flare is something that emerges from the relationship between the subject and the system, the light that floods the interior of the camera frame. Describing the phenomenon generated by his process, Takeda says that it is “evidence of its means, and is a mark of its existence.” He relativizes the premise that in photography the subject exists outside the camera’s system, being something that is objectified, with its image captured by the camera. His practice, in which he takes as his subject “the complex relationship between the means (camera) and the purpose (subject),” produces works that build on various types of experimentation conducted throughout the history of photography, as well as being beautiful, powerful, and intense.

Noritaka Tatehana presents a never-before-seen perspective and worldview by combining elements of traditional Japanese culture with values of the contemporary world. His carefully honed artistry is elegantly expressed throughout his various mediums. Nurturing the sensitivities of a rich history, mythology, and innovation, Tatehana’s work brims with his potential and hopes for the future. The artist is renowned for his trademark works titled “Heel-less Shoes,” which are inspired by the elevated wooden clogs worn by traditional Japanese courtesans. These works have attracted global recognition since being worn by celebrities including Lady Gaga. To date, Tatehana’s work has been collected by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Hiroto Tomonaga captures transitory moments in which things he is looking at ever so briefly appear to him as something else, and strives to render this in painting. He plays with shifts in perception, the way vision alternates between foreground and background, or interprets one thing as another, all of which is similarly echoed in the repetitive back and forth in his layering, removing, and mark making with paint. In this way, the changes that occur before his eyes gradually translate into paint on the canvas, becoming fixed on the surface. Working with subject matter close to himself, this process is a means for Tomonaga to ruminate on distance and depth, both physical and emotional. While the resulting paintings are fixed, they feel as if they might resume moving once again, and express the sense of helplessness the artist himself feels regarding the world he sees before him.

This presentation for GROUP SHOW: 6 ARTISTS will consist of approximately 20 works by the six artists.