Naotaka Hiro's multidisciplinary practice explores 'the unknowability of the body', while grappling with the limitations of being able to perceive one's own physicality as it is seen through other means.
Read MoreBorn in Osaka, Japan, Naotaka Hiro and his family moved to California's Bay Area in 1991. Receiving his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2000, Hiro settled in Pasadena, where he today lives and works.
Naotaka Hiro's instinctive and performative approach marries the historic Gutai Group's gestural experiments with the West Coast performance art he was exposed to while growing up in California in the early 1990s.
In particular, Hiro is preoccupied with the mysteries of the human body. In exploring this unknowability, Hiro stretches his body's capabilities through lengthy and physically demanding sessions to create work traversing video, sculpture, painting, and drawing.
For his larger works, Hiro will wrap himself in the unstretched canvas like a cocoon, working on the canvas from within with dye and oil sticks.
His thick plywood works demand a similar physicality. For previous works, Hiro has lain on the floor with the board positioned horizontally above him, l attacking the surface with graphite, pencils, and carving knives.
Hiro also has a background in filmmaking, which drives the crucial post-production stage of his works. The process entails a back and forth between instinctive, gestural brushstrokes and smaller, more concise processes of mark-making. The result of this meticulous process is tactile layers of organic shapes.
For their Frieze Los Angeles 2022 presentation, New York-based Bortolami Gallery included two of Hiro's thick plywood works —one of which was spotlighted by Ocula Advisory.
Introducing the artist, Ocula Advisory remarked, 'One of his key concerns is exploring "the unknowability of the body", reflecting the limitations of being able to perceive one's own physicality as it is seen through other means, such as cameras and mirrors.'
In 2021, Herald St presented Hiro's first European solo exhibition at their East London gallery. Titled Green Door, the presentation featured eight works produced between 2018 and 2021, including a selection of Hiro's plywood paintings, two large-scale canvases, and a bronze sculpture.
Hiro uses sculpture as a means to map segments of his anatomy. A Pair, a bronze cast of his body, was featured in Hammer Museum's 2018 group exhibition Made in L.A.. Hiro created a two-part cast of the front of his body, which he proceeded to cast in bronze. The end result was a fragmented, yet highly detailed, three-dimensional map of the artist's anatomy.
Naotaka Hiro's solo exhibitions include Armor, The Box, Los Angeles (2021); In the Ravine, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo (2019); Subterranean & Wanderer, Brennan & Griffin, New York (2019); Breaking the Waves, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago (2018); Gibbous, Brennan & Griffin, New York (2017); Peaking, The Box, Los Angeles (2016); Big Question, Brennan & Griffin, New York (2016); Red Olive, Golden Lips, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo (2015); Pit and Log, Brennan & Griffin, New York (2013); To and From, Dobaebacsa, Seoul (2009); Wrong Person, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo (2008); and Naotaka Hiro, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo (1999).
Hiro's group exhibitions include Disturbances in the Field, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno (2021); Sweet Home, Rachel Uffner, New York (2021); Forevermore Part 1, Misako & Rosen, Tokyo (2020); Myselves, Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); The Flat Files, The Pit, Los Angeles (2019); Made in L.A., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Abstract / Not Abstract, The Moore Building, Miami (2017); A Modest Proposal, Hauser & Wirth, New York (2016); Impromptu, The Box, Los Angeles (2016); Mirror Effect, The Box, Los Angeles (2015); and Figures, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2008).
Hiro's website can be found here, and his Instagram here.
Annabel Downes | Ocula | 2022
