2023.2.26

Shoko Masunaga “What Comes After the Beyond“

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present What Comes After the Beyond, Shoko Masunaga’s first solo show at the gallery, starting Saturday, March 18, through Sunday, April 23, 2023.

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A Painting as an Occurrence
Ryo Sawayama, art critic

In Shoko Masunaga’s creative process, paintings are formed, not drawn. Her paintings do not involve preconditioned support mediums that are limitlessly provided to the artists. The common circumstance of images being drawn onto a support medium canvas, therefore, is avoided to the greatest degree.

Instead, support mediums used as the foundation of Masunaga’s paintings are more like maneuverable materials that are fluid and flexible. Consequently, the images are generated alongside the support medium’s physical plasticity and thickness. The paintings evolve and expand. They are layered, folded, curved, twisted, peeled, diverted, ripped off, and pasted on. Her paintings are formed by way of accepting the various shape-changing actions described by these dynamic words. It is a logical and structural consequence that the formation of the support mediums and the genesis of the images occur simultaneously. 

The paintings are uninterrupted recordings of the artist’s behavior and actions. And released from the narrow confines of the wooden frames, the canvases can now display their shape-changing abilities in full-scale. While the cloth materials cannot support themselves on their own, if bent severalfold or transformed and redirected overtime, we realize that motion has been added to the materials. In that respect, the paintings become the artist’s various behaviors; the material’s tangible flexibility or transformability; and the mechanical location or occurrence in which forces like gravity intersect while in an inseparable state. A painting functioning as topos—a place to record continuous occurrences—is now established. 

It is at this point that Masunaga’s paintings change from something noun like to verb like, because her handcrafted creations are designed to be dynamic paintings that originate and evolve in front of the viewer’s eyes. They flutter as though taking in the surrounding air and wind, pulsing ever so slightly with its own breath’s cadence, and existing discreetly.   

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Born 1980 in Osaka, Japan, Shoko Masunaga graduated from Seian Zokei Junion College in 2001 with a degree in painting. She was in New York from 2018 to 2019 through the NARS Foundation International Residency Program. Her creative process originates from paintings and utilizes a variety of techniques. By focusing on the connections to the surrounding environment and space, her works become fluid and interchangeable. Recent major shows include editing (solo, nidi gallery, 2022), replace (solo, LOKO Gallery, 2021), Ordinary objects (group, Maki Fine Arts, 2020), Box, Box, Box (solo, Cooler Gallery, 2019), CRITERIUM 93 Shoko Masunaga (Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, 2018), and VOCA—The Vision of Contemporary Art 2017 (The Ueno Royal Museum, 2017).

2023.2.8

Mami Hirano “Imaginary Lesson“

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Imaginary Lesson, a solo show by Mami Hirano, starting Saturday, February 4 through Sunday, March 5, 2023. Hirano has showcased works including “Conservation and Reproduction” (2013)–a recreation of her pet dog who was declining in health, precisely duplicating elements such as its size, skeleton, and body details. In “METAMORPHOSES” (2018), the artist CT-scanned the urn that contained her beloved dog’s cremated remains and then used a 3D printer to create bones made out of glass and ceramic.
Her works are compassionate and are records of her observation on death. At the same time, they could also be considered a type of self-reflection for the purpose of accepting what has been lost. In her first solo show for Maki Fine Arts, Hirano will exhibit the processes behind her ongoing project “Revive a Unicorn,” which she has been working on since 2014. In this work, in an attempt to actualize the imaginary unicorn, meticulously-made skeleton, innards, muscles, and skin, as well as the life-support device connected to the heart and lungs will give the appearance of the mythical creature being brought to life. In addition to the unicorn, a deeper focus into Hirano’s life-long and ever-expanding project is on display in the form of blueprints of body parts, including the epidermis, organs, nerves, blood vessels, muscles, and the skeleton.

Mami Hirano
Born 1989 in Gifu, Japan, Mami Hirano graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with an MFA in Intermedia Art in 2014. By choosing subject matters that are both real and imaginary–such as a unicorn and her beloved dog who was battling an illness–and faithfully producing all the elements that make up those life forms including bones, innards, muscles, and skin, Hirano creates works about the structures of these life forms, the preservation of life, and the topic of resuscitation. Her works are a deep reflection on absence and death, preservation and creation, and recognition and existence; and invites viewers in this modern age to ponder on how we should face these contemplations. Hirano’s major shows include, Ab-sence/ac-ceptance (The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, 2021), Frankenstein in 2018: Bio-art throws light on art, science, and society today (EYE OF GYRE, 2018), and METAMORPHOSES (3331 Arts Chiyoda, 2021).

2023.2.25

Nao Osada “At Least One”

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present At Least One, a solo show by Nao Osada, starting Saturday, September 17, through Sunday, November 6, 2022. This is Osada’s second solo exhibition at the gallery since her first show two years ago.

Nao Osada
Born 1988, Nao Osada received her MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts. Notable shows include, I see (solo, NADiff Window Gallery, 2022), (Something) Not Amounting to Much (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2020), Breathtaking, for a while (solo, Open Letter, 2018), Playground for the Senses (group, ANB Tokyo, 2022), Shibuya Hikarie Contemporary Art Eye Vol.15 (group, Shibuya Hikarie CUBE, 2021), Encounters in Parallel (group, ANB Tokyo, 2021), Alex Dodge, Fuminao Suenaga, Nao Osada by Maki Fine Arts (group, CADAN Yurakucho, 2021), and Sunburn After Swimming in the Painted Pool (group, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum Gallery, 2020).

2023.2.8

Group Show – Yoshio Shirakawa | Fuminao Suenaga | Keisuke Shirota | Shunsuke Kano | Sean Micka

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present a group show featuring new and recent works by five artists starting Saturday, June 25, through Sunday, July 24, 2022.

Yoshio Shirakawa
Born 1948 in Fukuoka, Japan, Yoshio Shirakawa graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1981. Recent shows include To the Enneades (Rin Art Association, 2022), Summer Light (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2019), Weavers of Worlds -A Century of Flux in Japanese Modern/Contemporary Art–(Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2019), Production Process (solo, Rin Art Association, 2018), Beyond the future of Meld Sculpture (curation, Maki Fine Arts, 2018), Creative Dialogue with Museum 01–MONUMENT (Tottori Prefecture Museum, 2017), Aichi Triennale 2016–A Rainbow Caravan (2016), The Capital Room: Beyond Three Dimensional Logical Pictures–vol. 7 (solo, gallery αM, 2016), and dada, dada, da (solo, Arts Maebashi, 2014).

Fuminao Suenaga
Born 1974 in Yamagata, Japan, Fuminao Suenaga graduated from Tokyo Zokei University in 1999 with a major in painting. Recent shows include Picture Frame (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2020), Publicness of the Art Center (Art Tower Mito, Contemporary Art Gallery, 2019-2020), Weavers of Worlds–A Century of Flux in Japanese Modern/Contemporary Art– (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2019), MOT Collection: Pleased to meet you. New Acquisitions in recent years (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2019), Search Results (solo, Maki Fine Arts, Tokyo, 2018), railroad siding 2017 (former Tokorozawa city supply center for school meals, Saitama, 2017), APMoA Project ARCH vol. 11 Museum Piece (Aichi Prefecture Museum of Art, 2014), and Born in 1974 (part 1 of a 40th anniversary show, Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, 2014).

Keisuke Shirota
Born 1975 in Kanagawa, Japan, Keisuke Shirota received his MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Design in 2003. His recent exhibitions include Out of the frame (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2022), Over (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2021), PAINT,SEEING PHOTOS (solo, Chigasaki City Museum of Art, 2019-2020), Tracing / Background (solo, Base Gallery, 2013), Shell Artist Selection (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2013), Photo Reference: Photographic Image in Contemporary Japanese Art Practices (Belgrade Cultural Center, 2012), and his solo show at Galerie Stefan Röpke (2010).

Shunsuke Kano
Born 1983 in Osaka, Japan, Shunsuke Kano completed his graduate studies at Kyoto Saga University of Arts in 2010. Recent shows include Gaps in the Sandwich (solo, The Triangle, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, 2021-2022), Cascades and Barriers (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2021), Compression Training (solo, Clinic, 2021), Counter Program (solo, Art-Space TARN, 2020), Fountain for the 8th shiseido art egg (Shiseido Gallery, 2021), VOCA 2017 Vision of Contemporary Art (Ueno Royal Museum, 2017), and Photography Will Be (Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2014). Kano is also a member of the COPY TRAVELLERS.

Sean Micka
Born 1979 in Boston, Massachusetts, Sean Micka lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Micka was a participant in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program from 2012-2013 and 2013-2014. Recent shows include, Fine Silver and Extraordinary Diamonds from the Estate of an Important Collection (Josée Bienvenu Gallery, 2019), People Who Work Here (CFCP & David Zwirner Gallery, 2019), Edges, Corners, Shadows (Three Star Books, 2018), and Condition Report: Deregulation (Abron Arts Center, 2014).

2022.2.8

Keisuke Shirota “Out of the frame”

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Out of the frame, a solo show by Keisuke Shirota, starting Saturday, March 26, through Sunday, April 24, 2022. Shirota’s works combining photographs with paintings have been showcased in numerus shows including PAINT, SEEING PHOTOS at the Chigasaki City Museum of Art in 2019. In his second solo show with Maki Fine Arts, he will present new works that utilize snapshots that have been augmented by painting beyond the borders. His new works are based on his representational work “A Sense of Distance” he began creating around 2003. Misalignments created from overlapping photographs and voids (frames) formed through the drawings make the viewer notice the ambiguity found in the act of looking. At same time, Shirota’s works hint at the complex relationship between photography and painting.

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Out of the frame

One photograph. When staring at a single image, what flickers through my mind is the other possibilities–what ended up outside the frame. Pressing the shutter and taking the photograph is certainly one option. Regardless of the intention–whether it was to record a decisive moment or a boring, ordinary moment in time–unless you chose the path of not documenting the moment, there is no other way but to press the shutter to capture an image. The act of photography, regardless of one’s skill level, always involves choosing to frame a certain moment. On the flip side however, doesn’t it also simultaneously create numerous un-selected moments and frames? Even with the seemingly unlimited potential to film endless moments courtesy of today’s digital devices and smart phones, I am unable to dismiss these thoughts that intensify further. The time I spend looking at the photos seem to double as a time to confront the other possibilities that have spilled over from the chosen option.

The un-captured alternative option. The other could-have-been-selected frame.
As I negotiate with the limit created by the frame of the canvas, I treat the photograph as an access point to the other possibilities, adding brush strokes around it. The more I try to be faithful to the photograph, the tangibility of the gaps between photo and body; photography and painting; and record and memory increase. It goes without saying, the field that was drawn is only one possibility out of an infinite number of possibilities.

Kaisuke Shirota

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Keisuke Shirota
Born 1975 in Kanagawa, Japan, Shirota received his M.F.A from Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Design in 2003. His recent exhibitions include Over (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2021), PAINT, SEEING PHOTOS (solo, Chigasaki City Museum of Art, 2019-2020), Tracing / Background (solo, Base Gallery, 2013), Shell Artist Selection (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2013), Photo Reference: Photographic Image in Contemporary Japanese Art Practices (Belgrade Cultural Center, 2012), and his solo show at Galerie Stefan Röpke (2010).

2023.2.25

Shu Ikeda “Traces of Travel”

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Traces of Travel, a solo show by Shu Ikeda, starting Saturday, February 5, through Sunday, March 6, 2022. Ikeda has been producing works that traverse between painting and photography by creating unique shapes and voids out of photographs and using collage techniques. His subject matter has included landscapes depicting plants and water surfaces, scenes of Tokyo’s urban development before the Olympics, and still life detailing fruits and flowers.

In his sixth solo show with Maki Fine Arts, Ikeda will showcase new works using photographs the artist has taken during his travels to places like Berlin, Paris, Helsinki, and London. The works capture the moment his photographic travel records transform into a brand-new scene through his masterful cutting and collage-layering techniques. Looking at the crisp, highly-honed scenes displayed on the canvas, one may get a sense of how the artist approaches his works, perhaps in an attempt to reclaim the sensation of time that was lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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There’s often a gap between what you envisioned before your travels and what you actually experience and realize once at the destination. We travel to see and experience the unfamiliar. When we do, we often notice that the familiar suddenly feels novel, and what you thought would be straightforward was not so obvious after all. The appeal of travel–stepping away from your normal day-to-day life to discover something new and be amazed by or learn about cultural and ideological differences–has an addictive allure similar to how one can be drawn to art.

From 2020 through 2022, Covid-19 added numerous restrictions to our daily lives. Overseas travel, in particular, became difficult, making me painfully aware that we took for granted the ability to travel and the joy we experience capturing those memories using a camera. For this show, I used photographs taken during my travels as the base for my works. Those years seems like a lifetime ago, yet somehow it felt relevant to look back at my travel photos as part of my creative process during this challenging time.

In Traces of Travel, I use the photos as evidence of the trips and many of the works include traces that indicate the presence of something–such as light trails, brushstrokes, fragments, and voids.
Similar to how something lost makes you realize its essence or value, by cutting out photos and trimming off elements, I explore how it might be possible to find the answers to the questions ‘what is photography’ and ‘what is image.’ When one returns from travel or an art exhibition and can now look at their normal day-to-day life from a different angle, wouldn’t that mean they had a good experience?

Shu Ikeda

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Shu Ikeda
Born 1979 in Hiroshima, Japan, Ikeda graduated with an art degree from Tokyo Zokei University in 2004. He currently lives and works in Tokyo. Using nature and urban landscapes as motifs, Ikeda has been producing works that traverse between painting and photography by creating unique shapes and voids out of photographs and using collage techniques. Major shows include Object and Image (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2019), Sight (solo, Roppongi Hills A/D Gallery, 2018), and Why not live for Art? II – 9 collectors reveal their treasures (group, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, 2013).

2021.11.20

Seia Suzuki “All You Need is Surface”

Maki Fines Arts is pleased to present All You Need is Surface, by Seia Suzuki, starting Saturday, November 20, through Sunday, December 19, 2021. In his second solo show with Maki Fine Arts, Suzuki will showcase new works featuring what has been his representational subject matter, water surfaces.

The distortion seen in the sceneries drawn by Suzuki originates from his unique creative process. When scouting existing locations to use for his paintings, instead of taking a photograph, Suzuki opts to capture the scenery using text, jotting down descriptions of what he sees in front of him. He references his written notes to complete his work and skips the step of rough-drafting, choosing instead to start painting onto the canvas right away. When a photograph is used in the process of transforming actual scenery into a two-dimensional surface, that scenery has to be cropped at the moment of capture. Suzuki’s method, however, squeezes an already-recorded image into the frame of a canvas as though he is compressing the image while simultaneously painting it onto the canvas. This method aids in bringing out Suzuki’s unique perspective, allowing the subject matter to be reshaped at will. In his paintings, the effects of the illusions added to the canvas are bolstered by white mesh lines that portray water surfaces and exaggerated outlines of trees and leaves. Suzuki’s continued efforts to create illusions can also be seen in the wrinkles and textures added to the painted surfaces of his recent works.

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All You Need is Surface

The word ‘surface’ came up while naming the title for our last solo show, and it seemed very fitting.
I thought that by stepping back from the structure of an object and focusing solely on the surface instead, I could turn it into a painting.
What I am able to see are just surfaces.
Since I cannot see what’s inside, all I can do is to imagine.
One can only understand what someone is thinking through its ‘surface,’ known as words and behavior.
It’s as though wide-ranging thoughts are collected into the word ‘surface.’
These thoughts reminded me of the song “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles.
I remember buying the album when I was a kid and listening to the song all the time, but I later found out that there hasn’t been a consensus on what the song lyrics mean. We will never know what interpretation is right. All we can do is to image what was going through John Lennon’s mind.
Everything is a surface, and the surface is precisely everything.

Seia Suzuki

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Seia Suzuki

Born 1986 in Tokyo, Japan, Seia Suzuki received his MFA in painting from Tama Art University in 2012 and received the VOCA prize the same year. In order to understand what happens within the painting process, Suzuki takes a creative approach involving writing down the descriptions of actual scenery and then using the text descriptions to paint his canvas. Suzuki’s recent shows include Surface 2014 – 2020 (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2020), TOKYO☆VOCA (group, Dai-ichi Life Group Gallery, 2020), The Painting Sees the World Through My Body (solo, Gallery 16, 2018), project N 62 SUZUKI Seia (solo, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery 4F corridor, 2015), and Water Surface (solo, Dai-ichi Life Group Gallery, 2015).

2023.2.13

Alex Dodge “LAUNDRY DAY : IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH“

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present LAUNDRY DAY : IT ALL COMES OUT IN THE WASH, a solo show by Alex Dodge, starting Saturday, September 25th through Sunday, November 7th, 2021. In his much anticipated second show in Japan, two-and-a-half years since his first show, Alex Dodge will showcase new paintings that combine images of subject matter from his previous works–such as printed material including The New York Times–with images of textile, patters, clothing, and fabric.

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Between the Second and Third Dimension
Hitoshi Dehara (Curator, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art)

In his previous show at Maki Fine Arts, The Trauma of Information, the majority of Alex Dodge’s motifs were fabrics and newspapers that have been crumpled up or used for packaging–exactly the type of shapes that stimulate visual illusions. The contrast between the original shape and the warped shape helps our brain discharge the idea of three-dimensionality. The motifs are drawn alone on canvas without a background and emanate a certain amount of thickness. The oil paint is applied thickly using overlapping brush strokes and topped with stenciled text and patterns, which help flesh out the three-dimensional illusion even further. At close inspection, however, we see that some paint mounds don’t align with the illusionary irregularity of the newspaper’s surface and others bring attention to the flatness of the canvas used as foundation. They are neither uniform nor reduced to the augmentations created by the illusion. Therefore, our eyes end up wandering between the two perceptions: the three-dimensional (the thickness) and the two-dimensional (the three-dimensional illusion). Within this small little world, the universal riddle of visual arts–the difference between two perceptions–unfolds. These works should be seen as paintings that are fortified through precise planning and pliable positioning.

The artist uses computer-generated images through 3D simulations. His laser-cut stencils were influenced by Japanese stencil-dying techniques. Cutting-edge technology vs. traditional craft; west vs. east; art vs design; and painting vs. wood-block printing. In the hands of Alex Dodge, these seemingly opposite and contrasting (or strategically displayed) terms are effortlessly built into his creations according to his intent. For example, until the technique of Japanese stencil-dying is brought up, the viewer has no inkling of its influence in his works. Through high-tech support and intellectual planning, his works generate the visual surprise we experience.

In his recent works, Dodge has chosen motifs of day-to-day consumer items. The subtle existence of these items passing through our eyes surely help us find modernity and meaning, but it also echoes poetry. Poets compose a world of text independent from reality. Likewise, Alex Dodge accomplishes something similar through his paint brush.

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Alex Dodge
Born 1977 in Denver, Colorado, Alex Dodge currently works from Brooklyn, New York, and Tokyo, Japan. His recent shows include Alex Dodge (solo, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 2020); The Trauma of Information (solo, Maki Fine Arts, 2019); Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965-2018 (Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018-2019); and Whisper in My Ear and Tell Me Softly (solo, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, 2018). His works have been added to collections at The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

2021.8.14

“Beyond AI” – FARO Collection / Alfredo Jaar, Ryan Gander, JODI

Collaboration: SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, TARO NASU, Takuro Someya Contemporary Art, Upstream Gallery

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Beyond AI – FARO Collection, a three-artist show by Alfredo Jaar, Ryan Gander, and JODI, starting Saturday, August 14, through Sunday, September 5, 2021.

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Toward a different relationship with the internet–Writing on the Beyond AI exhibition
By Shinya Sugawara (art critic / theory)

In the mid-1970s before the current-day AI existed, there was an arcade game called Bird Game in which a patron could play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a chicken. Of course, the chicken wasn’t the one actually playing the game. It was conditioned to peck on the lit-up buttons that were connected to the computer program which determined the appropriate move. JODI’s “OXO” is inspired by the Bird Game and includes four types of players: chickens, humans, computers, and AI. The title “OXO” comes from what is known as the world’s first computer game, OXO, created by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952. The news of the Alpha Go computer program developed by Google DeepMind beating Lee Se-dol, a world champion Go player, is still fresh in our mind, and the significance of the event is no doubt reflected in JODI’s 2018 work. JODI’s work, however, is completely unlike the distant world of champion-Go-player-vs.-enigmatic-AI. JODI’s “OXO” is an interactive work that allows visitors to play a game of Tic-Tac-Toe against four types of players. Through this simple game familiar to everyone, visitors are able to experience and gain close understanding of the history of computers and games.

Ryan Gander’s “On slow Obliteration, or Illusion of explanatory depth” is comprised of a black, box-like device and the text displayed adjacent to the device. The text includes the artist’s critical view on the objective of smart phones and social media–encouraging users to waste time–and how that wasted time is linked to monetary gain. Websites and social media sites are designed to guide the user’s line of sight to follow in a certain way in order to persuade seeing particular images and videos or to click a certain link. The goal of these sites is to make people spend time on the sites and to generate profit. In contrast, Gander’s work presents an alternative to the concept of devices and optical sensation, contrasting the way we tend to stare at a single point or to follow the guided visual path when viewing websites and social media sites. In other words, while Gander’s work appears similar to the dots found on smart phone LCD screens, it is created using a simple, analog system comprised of black and gold flip dots. In order for the viewer to be ready for the relatively random flipping motion, it becomes necessary to look at the entirety of the work, absent-mindedly and without clear purpose.

For the Beyond AI show, Alfredo Jaar’s “You Do Not Take a Photograph, You Make It” is only one piece, a framed poster. Originally, however, his work was accompanied by a lightbox and take-home posters. The phrase used for the work title came from photographer Ansel Adams. Decades after he uttered those words, the environment surrounding pictures and images have drastically changed. When read today, the meaning of the same phrase can be interpreted completely differently. In this day and age, practically anyone can easily manipulate photos and even create a completely fake image using computer programs or AI. By taking an Ansel Adam phrase and using it on a take-home poster, Jaar asks us to pay attention to the current state of photos and images as well as the changes taking place in the field, urging responsibility for those creating images.

None of the three works in Beyond AI necessarily rejects the significance or existence of the internet or AI. Rather, the works question our relationships toward them and encourage us to build a different connection through various methods. Whether or not we embrace these methods and how we do it is up to our behavior after leaving the exhibition.

[Simultaneous Exhibition]
Alex Dodge “Remote Working”
Date : August 14 – September 5, 2021
Venue : FARO Kagurazaka
For more information

2023.2.13

Shunsuke Kano “Cascades and Barriers”

Maki Fine Arts is pleased to present Cascades and Barriers, a solo show by Shunsuke Kano, from Saturday, June 5, through July 4, 2021. Through his photographic illusions, Kano compels his viewers to see the complex layers that appear on surfaces. His works utilizes the aspects of overlap (layers)–the creative concept of printmaking–and camera (photographs)–the recording device. By compressing the surfaces, the order of layer placement as well as the perception of depth become blurred, creating an optical illusion. Born 1983 in Osaka, Japan, Kano is also an active member of the artists group THE COPY TRAVELERS.
Since his first solo show in 2013, Kano has exhibited his works in various venues including Maki Fine Arts. In his sixth solo show at the gallery, Kano will present new works from his “Pink Shadow” series, focusing on how light filters through paper. While the majority of his previous works were made by layering elements over the front surface, his new “Pink Shadow” series includes layers added from the back surface. This method of layering was inspired by printmaker Shoichi Ida and allows simultaneous viewing of the front and back surfaces. Since unveiling his series at Maki Fine Arts in 2018 in his solo show Pink Shadow, Kano’s works have evolved, and his well-honed creations now demonstrate added elements with complex layer structures. Using silkscreen technique, the central flower and stripe patterns are printed on transparent vinyl and placed on the backside of the printed photograph. The balance between the images projected from the back and the multiple wood shadows on the photograph triggers the optical sensation and generates a layered illusion with even more dimensionality.

Shunsuke Kano
Born 1983 in Osaka, Japan, Shunsuke Kano completed his graduate studies at Kyoto Saga University of Arts in 2010. He currently lives and works in Kyoto. Kano has been presenting photographic works that question the act of looking by using methods that generate awareness of complex layers. His works have been exhibited in solo shows such as Pink Shadow (Maki Fine Arts, 2018), Construction Cross Section (Maki Fine Arts, 2016), Shunsuke KANO | Jenga and Fountain for the 8th shiseido art egg (Shiseido Gallery, 2014), as well as group shows including VOCA 2017 Vision of Contemporary Art (Ueno Royal Museum, 2017), and Photography Will Be (Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2014). Kano is also a member of the artists group THE COPY TRAVELERS.