Izumi Kato
12 Jun - 26 Jul 2014
IZUMI KATO
12 June - 26 July 2014
Galerie Perrotin is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Parisby Japanese artist Izumi Kato, gathering a selection of recent paintings,drawings and sculptures.
Children with disturbing faces, embryos with fully developed limbs orancestor spirits locked up in bodies with imprecise forms – the creaturessummoned by Izumi Kato are as fascinating as they are enigmatic.Their anonymous silhouettes and strange faces with absent features areabove all simple forms and strong colours. Their elementary representation,an oval head with two big, fathomlessly deep eyes shows no morethan a crudely figured nose and mouth. Bringing to mind primitive arts,their expressions evoke totems and the animist belief that a spriritualforce runs through living and mineral worlds alike. The aura that theyexude seems to manifest the first movement of life while the intensityof their expression gives us access to a knowledge of man foundedless on reason than on intuition. Embodying a primal, universal formof humanity, these magical beings invite viewers to identify themselvesas if looking in a mirror.
Kato uses rubber spatulas to paint the motifs and swathes of colourfor his grounds. He also uses his fingers, clad in vinyl gloves, to tracethe fragile contours of his figures. For Kato, painting is an extra-naturalform of expression that competes with the real world and allows himto create a separate universe in which the imaginary matters as muchas reality. In Kato’s work, where ancient and modern times merge, asdo intuition and intellect, body and mind are joined in the fluctuatingforms and bursts of colour that punctuate these mysteriously humanforms. The same goes for his sculptures, originally carved in wood but here, for the first time, made from supple plastic, a material that allows the artist to paint, cut and twist as his work progresses.Representing beings that are sometimes alone, sometimes in pairsor groups, reclining, gathering, or simply standing, these creatureswhose protuberant eyes draw in the viewer with their silent speech,seem to float in space – naked bodies stuck on supports or simpleheads staring at us from a wooden stool, inviting us to interact withthem. The colour and crude elementary forms of the material manifestour bond to earth and to nature, but also, by the quality of theirplasticity, our inscription in today’s world. The refuges of spiritswhose chiseled and painted expressions remain ambiguous, serveas a medium for the beholder to explore his or her own instincts.
Going beyond the classic opposition between abstraction and figuration,symbolism and realism, Kato founds the simple features ofprimitive, ancestral arts in the forms of contemporary art by creatingmodern fetishes capable of linking us to our deep, universal nature,and at the same time to our deepest individual emotions. Thus thesingular evolution of his figures reproduces that of art itself, by following,not time’s straight arrow, but the closed loop of the cycle oflife, uniting ages and souls in the human condition.
Izumi Kato was born in 1969, in Shimane, Japan. He graduated fromthe Department of Oil Painting at Musashino University in 1992. Henow lives and works in Tokyo. Since 2000’s, Kato has garnered attentionas an innovative artist through exhibitions held in Japan andacross the world. In 2007, he was invited to the 52nd Venice BiennaleInternational Exhibition, curated by Robert Storr.
12 June - 26 July 2014
Galerie Perrotin is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Parisby Japanese artist Izumi Kato, gathering a selection of recent paintings,drawings and sculptures.
Children with disturbing faces, embryos with fully developed limbs orancestor spirits locked up in bodies with imprecise forms – the creaturessummoned by Izumi Kato are as fascinating as they are enigmatic.Their anonymous silhouettes and strange faces with absent features areabove all simple forms and strong colours. Their elementary representation,an oval head with two big, fathomlessly deep eyes shows no morethan a crudely figured nose and mouth. Bringing to mind primitive arts,their expressions evoke totems and the animist belief that a spriritualforce runs through living and mineral worlds alike. The aura that theyexude seems to manifest the first movement of life while the intensityof their expression gives us access to a knowledge of man foundedless on reason than on intuition. Embodying a primal, universal formof humanity, these magical beings invite viewers to identify themselvesas if looking in a mirror.
Kato uses rubber spatulas to paint the motifs and swathes of colourfor his grounds. He also uses his fingers, clad in vinyl gloves, to tracethe fragile contours of his figures. For Kato, painting is an extra-naturalform of expression that competes with the real world and allows himto create a separate universe in which the imaginary matters as muchas reality. In Kato’s work, where ancient and modern times merge, asdo intuition and intellect, body and mind are joined in the fluctuatingforms and bursts of colour that punctuate these mysteriously humanforms. The same goes for his sculptures, originally carved in wood but here, for the first time, made from supple plastic, a material that allows the artist to paint, cut and twist as his work progresses.Representing beings that are sometimes alone, sometimes in pairsor groups, reclining, gathering, or simply standing, these creatureswhose protuberant eyes draw in the viewer with their silent speech,seem to float in space – naked bodies stuck on supports or simpleheads staring at us from a wooden stool, inviting us to interact withthem. The colour and crude elementary forms of the material manifestour bond to earth and to nature, but also, by the quality of theirplasticity, our inscription in today’s world. The refuges of spiritswhose chiseled and painted expressions remain ambiguous, serveas a medium for the beholder to explore his or her own instincts.
Going beyond the classic opposition between abstraction and figuration,symbolism and realism, Kato founds the simple features ofprimitive, ancestral arts in the forms of contemporary art by creatingmodern fetishes capable of linking us to our deep, universal nature,and at the same time to our deepest individual emotions. Thus thesingular evolution of his figures reproduces that of art itself, by following,not time’s straight arrow, but the closed loop of the cycle oflife, uniting ages and souls in the human condition.
Izumi Kato was born in 1969, in Shimane, Japan. He graduated fromthe Department of Oil Painting at Musashino University in 1992. Henow lives and works in Tokyo. Since 2000’s, Kato has garnered attentionas an innovative artist through exhibitions held in Japan andacross the world. In 2007, he was invited to the 52nd Venice BiennaleInternational Exhibition, curated by Robert Storr.