Special exhibition “Idemitsu Art Award Artist Selection 2023”

We tend to think that we all see the same colors, but each person's perception and concept of color is different, and we don't really know how our neighbors perceive it. For example, the area on the horizon where the blue sky and clouds blend together may be called light blue, gray, or white, depending on the person.
Yu Kurosaka is a painter who has made public his color vision characteristics, and to put it simply, he seems to have difficulty distinguishing between red and green. However, this does not mean that he paints the world as he sees it. Since you can conceptually understand colors that are difficult to perceive, you can apply color rules that are shared by many people to your own creations. Lately, he has been making use of his own individuality and intentionally mixing different colors on his palette that he cannot identify, and painting with that range of colors as part of his production process. The color of a work may happen to coincide with an existing system, or it may be completely different, but it is not the unique color of the object, nor is it an impression of the artist or an expression of inner feelings. In this way, Kurosaka frees color from its existing role and attempts to discover the undiscovered potential of color.

In 2022, I saw Hashimoto's solo exhibition “Inviting the Shadow” at Aomori Public University International Art Center Aomori. In addition to the miniature-style drawing “To the Forest,” which uses a pencil to depict the landscape of a road extending into the depths of the canvas through the trees, there was also “In the Forest” a drawing that made use of the blank space. The shadow of the leaf shown in silhouette had a dark layer in the foreground and a lighter layer in the back, creating a multilayered space within the screen. This layeredness is also reflected in To the Forest in the form of the pencil-drawn frame and the folded paper base. This characteristic was clearly seen in his solo exhibition at Shiseido Gallery (2020), where the shadows of the light bulbs hanging in front of the paintings fell on the paintings that were folded to fit the corners of the exhibition room. The shadow and the shadow of reality overlap. Hashimoto's appeal lies in his ability to balance the detail that immerses you into the screen with the spatiality that involves your body.

Yuho Matsuoka's works are characterized by a sense of substance, like pieces of colored paper scattered on a table. However, this is different from the overlapping of paper; it is an overlapping of transparent light and color, and the color combinations are complementary colors (opposite colors), such as orange and blue, or red and green. At first glance, it looks like the colors and shapes were created freely and improvised, but in reality they are architectural paintings that have been carefully arranged to highlight the brilliance of the colors and the balance between advancing and receding colors. Just as the abstract paintings that started at the beginning of the 20th century are talked about in their relationship with music, Matsuoka's works are also a polyphony of colors and shapes that give a sense of rhythm and melody, reminiscent of early abstract paintings. It gives off a kind of charm.

The “Shell Art Award/Idemitsu Art Award” is an open call for two-dimensional works, but it is no wonder that an artist with a background in painting has since moved on to creating media other than two-dimensional and has expanded his activities. Probably not. Harumi Yamanaka is one such artist, and in recent years has been producing and presenting mainly video works. The exhibition I saw in June 2022 featured video works that brought out the “voices” of performers who live their lives directly affected by distortions in modern Japanese society. A collection of paintings was also on display. At first glance, these different styles may not seem to be by the same artist, but they are loosely connected by common elements such as windows and light, and intersect as they address big questions. I was intrigued by the way the work was created, using a certain “scene” as the impetus for its production, but was constructed through repeated interviews and research, and presented to the viewer in a multi-layered manner.
In preparation for this exhibition, Yamanaka is working on video and two-dimensional works in parallel. I look forward to seeing how he will connect different time and space, images in memory, and reality in his work, starting from the scenery that has emerged from interviews with people (performers) that he has continued to conduct since last year.