Hiroshi Sugito - Jun Aoki
05 Mar - 09 Apr 2011
installation view from [ needle and thread ] at Tomio Koyama Gallery, 2011
© Hiroshi Sugito, Jun Aoki
© Hiroshi Sugito, Jun Aoki
HIROSHI SUGITO - JUN AOKI
needle and thread
5 March - 9 April, 2011
Sugito had finished painting the ground on a number of large canvases in his studio. Some were completely covered with light pastel colors, and some were painted with a grid reminiscent of textile patterns. "When I begin moving my brush, I feel like I am leaving everything behind and walking into the forest all alone. When I do this, I end up seeking words and meanings that take power from the forest, and then I manage to slowly disappear from the place." (Hiroshi Sugito, press release, Marc Foxx 1996). Recalling this statement, it seems that the trees in the forest of these canvases are waiting quietly for the artist to breathe life into them.
Sugito majored in Japanese-style painting and he often uses traditional mineral pigment as a medium, but his paintings carry on the major theme of modern Western-style painting, how to make a planar surface come alive. The rectangular pictorial surface sometimes turns into butterflies and sometimes mountains. The painted areas changed into luxuriant foliage or clouds. The empty margins deliberately left in the ground suggest something definite but not painted to the eyes of the viewer - air, water, overflowing light, or a transparent curtain suddenly appearing in the forest. These paintings, which move back and forth in the interval between representation and abstraction, are hallucinatory, creating illusions that unsettle our ordinary sensations of our own bodies. Sugito may be searching for clues to open up the unknown possibilities of the flat medium of painting explored by painters of the past, methods like the divisions in Mondrian's paintings, the motifs blending into the decoration in Matisse, and the rhythm of line and color in Abstract Expressionism. In recent years, his work is moving toward three dimensions in wooden panel pictures with bases and the cast-iron reliefs.
» Concept:
This exhibition is being held as a precursor to "leaves and fields(cob web and spider) - Jun Aoki and Hiroshi Sugito," an exhibition commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Aomori Museum of Art which will begin on April 23. For both Sugito and Aoki, their works, whether art or architecture, are test pieces that are never finished. When the work leaves their hand it is not considered complete. It is always left to be changed little by little by the user or the viewer. In this exhibition the gallery is transformed into a "studying field" thinking of how and where spiders spread out there cobwebs. We hope that you will take the opportunity to see this show. It is guaranteed to be surprising and fun.
» Artist Biography:
Hiroshi Sugito was born in Aichi prefecture in 1970. He lived in New York between the ages of 3 and 14 and in 1992 graduated in Japanese-style painting from the Aichi Prefectural University of Arts. He lives and works in Aichi prefecture. This is his sixth solo exhibition at the Tomio Koyama Gallery, and four years since his last show. He has shown both in Japan and overseas, and his works have been acquired by many art museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jun Aoki
Jun Aoki was born in Yokohama in 1956. He obtained a master's degree in architecture from Tokyo University in 1982. After working in the Atelier Arata Isozaki from 1983 to 1990, he established his own office, Jun Aoki and Associates, in 1991. He has designed a wide variety of architecture from private residences to public and commercial buildings and has received high praise for his original designs. One of his major projects is the Aomori Museum of Art. His design was selected out of 393 entries in an open competition in 2000. Construction was begun in 2005 and the museum was opened in 2007.
needle and thread
5 March - 9 April, 2011
Sugito had finished painting the ground on a number of large canvases in his studio. Some were completely covered with light pastel colors, and some were painted with a grid reminiscent of textile patterns. "When I begin moving my brush, I feel like I am leaving everything behind and walking into the forest all alone. When I do this, I end up seeking words and meanings that take power from the forest, and then I manage to slowly disappear from the place." (Hiroshi Sugito, press release, Marc Foxx 1996). Recalling this statement, it seems that the trees in the forest of these canvases are waiting quietly for the artist to breathe life into them.
Sugito majored in Japanese-style painting and he often uses traditional mineral pigment as a medium, but his paintings carry on the major theme of modern Western-style painting, how to make a planar surface come alive. The rectangular pictorial surface sometimes turns into butterflies and sometimes mountains. The painted areas changed into luxuriant foliage or clouds. The empty margins deliberately left in the ground suggest something definite but not painted to the eyes of the viewer - air, water, overflowing light, or a transparent curtain suddenly appearing in the forest. These paintings, which move back and forth in the interval between representation and abstraction, are hallucinatory, creating illusions that unsettle our ordinary sensations of our own bodies. Sugito may be searching for clues to open up the unknown possibilities of the flat medium of painting explored by painters of the past, methods like the divisions in Mondrian's paintings, the motifs blending into the decoration in Matisse, and the rhythm of line and color in Abstract Expressionism. In recent years, his work is moving toward three dimensions in wooden panel pictures with bases and the cast-iron reliefs.
» Concept:
This exhibition is being held as a precursor to "leaves and fields(cob web and spider) - Jun Aoki and Hiroshi Sugito," an exhibition commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Aomori Museum of Art which will begin on April 23. For both Sugito and Aoki, their works, whether art or architecture, are test pieces that are never finished. When the work leaves their hand it is not considered complete. It is always left to be changed little by little by the user or the viewer. In this exhibition the gallery is transformed into a "studying field" thinking of how and where spiders spread out there cobwebs. We hope that you will take the opportunity to see this show. It is guaranteed to be surprising and fun.
» Artist Biography:
Hiroshi Sugito was born in Aichi prefecture in 1970. He lived in New York between the ages of 3 and 14 and in 1992 graduated in Japanese-style painting from the Aichi Prefectural University of Arts. He lives and works in Aichi prefecture. This is his sixth solo exhibition at the Tomio Koyama Gallery, and four years since his last show. He has shown both in Japan and overseas, and his works have been acquired by many art museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Jun Aoki
Jun Aoki was born in Yokohama in 1956. He obtained a master's degree in architecture from Tokyo University in 1982. After working in the Atelier Arata Isozaki from 1983 to 1990, he established his own office, Jun Aoki and Associates, in 1991. He has designed a wide variety of architecture from private residences to public and commercial buildings and has received high praise for his original designs. One of his major projects is the Aomori Museum of Art. His design was selected out of 393 entries in an open competition in 2000. Construction was begun in 2005 and the museum was opened in 2007.