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.
Read MoreIn 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.
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