SOONIK KWON, TSUYOSHI MAEKAWA

– Tsuyoshi Maekawa

The reason why I used the jargon “interstice” is simply because it is not the word “gap,” which is different from the emotional spaces between people

– Soonik Kwon

Whitestone Ginza Gallery is pleased to announce the duo exhibition The Surface Speaks Volumes, featuring Tsuyoshi Maekawa (1936–) and Soonik Kwon (1959–).

Tsuyoshi Maekawa, who claims “dungarees” (burlaps) as his personal signature, has maintained a unique and peerless presence. Through his dynamic modelling power and relentless persistence to the matter, Maekawa has continued to expand the boundaries of the tableaus even after the dissolution of the Gutai Art Association. Critics have remarked that he “progressively resolved the raw, vulgar texture of burlaps,” and that “rather than painting on the canvas, he is possessed by the canvas itself, or by the material of the canvas, wrestling with fabric through ever-changing methods and forms.” In a 2020 interview, Maekawa defined his own creative creed as “expressing what I want to express in the language of pure abstraction, a language that uses color, shape, and matter,” grounded in the principles of being “original,” “not copying someone else,” “not being a follower,” and “not including any literary or religious elements.”

Soonik Kwon, whose first appearance in Japan is this exhibition, is an experienced artist highly acclaimed not only in his country South Korea but also across Europe, North America, and Latin America. Having launched his career as a ceramic artist, Kwon creates abstract paintings that retain rich, sculptural reminiscence within their qualified, multi-layered color structures. His relief-like surface as if “the very process of creation into which personal experience was projected” serves as a live broadcast of the continuous interaction between the artist and the material. His signature series, such as Pile Up & Rub – Interstice and Absence of Ego, indicate that the true narrators are the autonomous forms and hues themselves, in which the artist’s own thoughts submerge into the material, and at times assimilate with, shifting toward a heightened, crystalline state of mind.

We cordially invite you to experience the quiet power and overwhelming originality of the works, represented by two East Asia’s Great Masters of abstraction.

We look forward to welcoming you to the gallery.