ONISHI GALLERY | New York

STOCK BOX | Hideto Imai

Shanx — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:48:54 +0000

Onishi Gallery is proud to present Hideto Imai in a solo show, Stock Box. This exhibition’s theme, “Stock Box,” was born from the experience of the recent earthquake in Japan. Since the earthquake, Imai has increasingly felt the importance of “daily life.” He recognizes the significance of obtaining “things” and “food” in everyday life. Today we are surrounded by all our necessities and subsequently lose a sense of striving to obtain them.

“Stock Box” exists inside the artist’s mind. When Hideto Imai shops for food and daily necessities, he collects his shopping receipts. He burns them into charcoal and dissolves the charcoal into water to create ink. He uses the ink to make drawings; this is a way of leaving traces of how he lives on paper. His geometric images can be interpreted as symbolic, cryptographic messages to his viewers. For Imai, the charcoal is an artifact of the receipts, which are in turn a record of the unfolding of daily life, and the drawings are thus an affirmation of life itself.

Imai’s work expresses his view of the world economy in terms of its cyclical structure and circulation. This exhibition is his attempt to organize this structure as imagery in his mind. Original materials are combined, consolidated, and reformed as a new product.

Imai, born in 1968 in Japan’s Mie Prefecture, has exhibited extensively in Japan and Italy. In 2008, he exhibited in an Onishi Gallery group show, Unity and Isolation, followed by a solo exhibition in 2009 of Daily Life. Imai’s examination of the structure of consumption and daily life is complicated further by his realization of the impermanence of things following the tragic 2011 Japan earthquake. 19 of the 30 pieces in this exhibition were created directly following the earthquake.

The Sound of White Marble | Shikama Koziro

Shanx — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:20:17 +0000

Onishi Gallery is proud to present artist and sculptor Shikama Koziro in his first American solo show, The Sound of White Marble. With his signature use of aperture areas and openness in his work, Shikama uses rectangular, circular, and semi-circular shapes together to transform his sculpture into a living form.

Shigenobu Kimura, art critic and Emeritus Professor of Osaka University, writes of Shikama’s work:

There is great subtlety in Shikama’s sculptures, where together both dimensions [the ‘reflection’ and the solid form on the ‘black’ and ‘white’] work to generate a free use of space and so create something ‘greater than the sum of its parts… Shikama’s work shouldn’t be seen as inorganic, but rather full of life. I would choose to describe Shikama’s sculpture creations as being ‘biomorphic’, because of the ‘spirit he breathes’ into them.

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Koziro Shikama — Symbol of Existence, 2010, marble, H 12.6 x W 15.7 x D 3.9 in.

Mayor of Himeji City, Toshikatsu Iwami, also says of Shikama:

He is a well-known Japanese artist and shows regularly all over Japan. Mr. Shikama frequently shows his work in foreign countries and has garnered immense praise. Though his style is modern, his sculptures are often inspired by Japanese traditional rock gardens, stone lanterns or Shinto shrine archways.

Shikama was born in Takasago, Hyogo Prefecture in 1941. After graduating from Kanazawa College of Art in 1964, he has sustained a 50 year career worldwide through exhibitions in Japan, Spain, Mexico, and now the United States.

Dreamscapes | Stefania Carrozzini

Shanx — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 02:38:07 +0000

Curator
Stefania Carrozzini

Artists
Andrea Agrati / Beatrice Corradi Dell’Acqua / Alessio Elli / Karen Hochman Brown / Yeoun Lee / Emanuele Panzera / Matti Sirvio / Lisbeth Svensson / Dal Pozzo D’Annone / Canal Cheong-Jagerroos / Mike Wong Joon Fong

Karen Hochman Brown, Rose Frills in Four, digital art giclée print on canvas, 30 x 30 in., 2011

Onishi Gallery is pleased to announce DREAMSCAPES, an international exhibition featuring ten artists curated by Stefania Carrozzini, a Milan based independent curator. Her shows have received wide acclaim in New York, China and as well as in several cities in Italy.

The big adventure of art is the ability to see beyond what is known, beyond the limits of reality. Artists have always worked in that area which belongs to dreams and the imagination. The creative process advances by association, it is made of the same stuff as dreams. Unhooked from our daytime life we are free to recreate ourselves. Symbols of individual adventure, dreams appear to us as the truest and most secret expression of ourselves. When we dream we are all artists, even though unconsciously, of extraordinary tales, of chained dramas, unconfessable desires, totally free from schemes and moral judgment. The world of dreams is overflowing with symbols and is structured as a language, it communicates much more about our life than our daytime consciousness lets on.

Similar to dreams also art is necessary to the biological and mental harmony of the individual. Both serve to absolve a vital function: the hunger for freedom and poetry. Creative language thus gathers the demand for representation of codes and symbols, until it transforms the energy of unconscious pulsations, even conflicting, into a need for truth. The dream is like preparatory rough work, an approximate sketch, a project of the future conscious activity. Such a mental activity may be assimilated to the creative process. The unconscious is known to be the big tank from which to get ideas and like dreams also art feeds on symbols.

Dreamscapes are free spaces where the dreamer is always the main character. In this space, time and the rules of gravity do not exist; the rules are overturned, absurd. The prospects are at times deceptive, or too real; the outlines of ethereal things, subtle, suspended, at the limit of what is visible. It is with this awareness that we are perhaps ready to meet art.

Stefania Carrozzini

A catalogue of the collection will be available at the gallery.

Rinne Samsara | Megumi Nagai

Shanx — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:37:32 +0000

Inspired by Japanese fables and Edo period artists, Japanese born artist Megumi Nagai’s exquisite renderings of inner fantasies reveal a passionate and humorous soul; a gentle person of enormous strength. Megumi’s statement of process is reminiscent of the great surrealists, “sometimes an unexpected occurs, and a surprising relationship develops between the wood and me. So until I complete a work, I do not know what will result.” What does result, again and again, are artworks of unusual beauty and power, humorous and true.

Elizabeth A. Sackler,
President, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation

Onishi Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Megumi Nagai entitled “Rinne samsara”. In her most recent work, Nagai revisits the spirituality of her native Japan and the legacy of Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, evoking her own faith as she endeavors to give form to the Buddhist concept of Rinne, or rebirth.

While in her previous pieces Nagai has sought to resurrect the fables and mythology of traditional Japanese folklore, the visions of death and creation depicted in her latest work capture something far more immaterial⎯the essence of a living being. Inextricable from the blocks of mahogany and burl on which they are painted, these pieces express visually the cycle of the soul as it turns, the wooden contours of the grain imbuing each with the inimitable uniqueness of life.

Rinne is impermanence made physical; at a glance orderly and symmetrical, but, upon closer inspection, wild, unpredictable, and freely flowing from one fragile moment to another. It is a true portrait of nature’s contempt for edifice, its insistence on chaos, and its limitless potential for startling beauty.

Born in Japan in 1951, Megumi Nagai received her degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1975. She lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Meditations: History, Faith, Calling | David Chang

Shanx — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 02:26:48 +0000

Onishi Gallery is pleased to announce its second exhibition of work by David Chang. The exhibition entitled Meditations is a deeply personal exploration of Chang’s triune study of self: his history, his faith, his calling.

The exhibition consists of three large inks on canvas and a series of studies, building up from various texts, ranging from the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, to sacred biblical verses, to the philosophy of Howard Hain.

“David Chang extracts from the ritualized strokes of traditional calligraphy the essence of each phrase. The result is a dynamic, layered, prophetic translation. His work possesses a truly organic, somewhat strange “fence-like” quality—establishing a firm boundary that both keeps you at bay and lures you to peek between the cracks—you sense that something lies behind these weathered boards and planks that first hit your eye as disordered bands of color and shadow. And what lies behind is an ordered dissection of time and place. There is nothing haphazard about Chang’s work. The outward appearance may mislead you, but only in the way a seemingly neglected fence encircles a beautifully manicured garden.

Perhaps what I find most striking (and a privilege to witness) about this phase of his body of work is that Chang continues to choose conversion—that is he makes the bold choice of eternity over time. With each progression his work becomes more personal, more autobiographical, and perhaps most of all, more confessional. For from a moment of doubt he sows faith, the fruit of which is the freedom to doubt. He reconciles. He strikes. His conversion deepens. He translates the universal language of sense and salvation into a distinct, individual, stroke. Yet there is no idolatry, no worship of self. No, instead Chang sanctifies and consecrates. The process is meditation, and the work, with all due respect, a byproduct of worship and prayer.”—Howard Hain

Born in Seoul, Korea in 1971, David Chang lives and works in New York City. The son of a Korean pastor—who himself descends from a long line of pastors—Chang found himself confronting issues of identity and the role of faith at an early age. Raised in the United States, he began his artistic journey through the strict structure of the eastern scribe, while embracing the tools and techniques from western calligraphy (the Italian humanist documents, the German expressionist stroke, and the English roundhand). He has spent the last decade developing his unique style. Throughout his development he continued to seek out and study with various masters of western calligraphy—most notably, John Stevens, Brody Neuenschwander and Denis Brown.

Chang’s work stems from a calligraphic gesture that is intuitive and spontaneous. He applies his distinct gesture to investigate and interpret text in a contemporary context. The end result is a texture on a page that approaches lyrical abstraction. Chang had his first major solo exhibition this past January at Onishi Gallery in Chelsea. He has participated in several group exhibitions internationally, and in the fall of 2010 he exhibited with the Society of Scribes at the National Arts Club in New York. He currently has an exhibition hanging at Pratt, running through November 14th. His work can also be seen at Calvary-St. George’s Church in Gramercy Park, New York (October 9-30th).

Lines – 線 | Road to the Future

Shanx — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 00:50:49 +0000

Onishi Gallery is proud to present the artist and draftsman Wataru Matsumura in his first American solo show, Lines. Using pen and paper, the artist creates intricate and time-consuming pieces that evoke the textile traditions of both Japanese kimonos and western fabric designs.

A native of Kumamoto prefecture, Wataru Matsumura has been an active artist since 1967. Matsumura’s works in black and white using black ink pen have created their own world.

Akira Sakata, former vice-director now adviser at the Kumamoto Prefectural Art Museum reflects on influence of the Kumamoto Castle in Matsumura’s works. The castle’s black and white walls embody the spirit and the world of “black ink” in Matsumura’s drawings. While I feel things and quantity in Western black, I feel the heart and spirit in Matsumura’s black. Also “shape” in Matsumura’s work comes from his original “shape” based on Japanese traditional shape—what is called “the shape of things”. This was passed down in the Japanese culture and in the people’s daily lives.

Sakata further states “I feel that the density of his paintings as well as his spirit has intensified in his works, much like a Buddhist mandala. Matsumura’s minute and masterfully controlled technique of pen drawing creates a small and mysterious universe, alien like the moon and the places of fairy tales.”

Japan’s Leading Art College in New York

Shanx — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:45:22 +0000

Onishi Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of contemporary crafts from the Kanazawa College of Art, Japan from September 8 to 22.

The Kanazawa College of Art is the only art school in Japan which offers an academic major in crafts. As a result, the college has produced a myriad of great craft artists with no close rivals in Japan. This productivity is reflected in the number of “Living National Treasures” the college has produced and the college’s influence on Japanese craft and design. This exhibition consists of two parts: “Wa-Ring” and “Japanese Contemporary Crafts by Three Great Masters”.

A key part of the show, the “Wa-Ring” exhibit features art using ring-shaped wooden objects and Kanazawa City’s traditional industrial product, gold leaf. Each participant is given free reign over his or her work. The “Wa-Ring” exhibit was created by 59 graduates and 11 current students from the Kanazawa College of Art.

In Kanazawa City, the traditional arts such as gold leaf, ceramic, lacquer ware, metal inlay and fabric dyeing have been fostered for many centuries. In addition to being known as a beautiful castle town, Kanazawa City has also become well known as a showcase for contemporary and modern art since the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa opened in 2004. The city has a unique quality of integrating traditionalism and modernism, making the city and its artists amongst the most influential in Japan.

In another key part of the show, “Japanese Contemporary Crafts by Three Great Masters”, Living National Treasures Fumio Mae (Chinkin Lacquer) and Mamoru Nakagawa (Metal Inlay), as well as the director of the Kanazawa College of Art, Kenji Kuze (Ceramic), will present art pieces. They are all leading contemporary craftsmen of Japan and live in Kanazawa City.

Just after World War II ended, the Kanazawa College of Art was established in 1946 with the dedication of Kanazawa citizens, who yearned to contribute to the peace of mankind through the creation of beauty. Among its graduates are many pioneers of traditional art as well as a variety of talented individuals in the areas of pure art and designer industries. The digital artwork of Shigeru Miyamoto — the father of the Nintendo game software “Super Mario” — and Mamoru Hosoda — the director of the animated movie “Summer Wars” — is lauded around the world.

A total of 1300 participants, consisting mainly of graduates of the university as well as current students, have organized the grand art exhibition to be simultaneously held in three cities: Tokyo Ginza, Kanazawa and New York. In total, there are 149 locations, with 163 exhibitions, beginning with an exhibit in Tokyo Ginza in 2002, and continuing in 2004 and 2007. Now, in 2011, this show will be the fourth time such an exhibit has been held.

Sponsor:: Bureau of Art Exhibition 2011
Cosponsor:: Alumni Association of Kanazawa College of Art
Kanazawa College of Art
Cooperation:: Cooperative Association of Gold Leaf Commerce and Industry, Ishikawa Prefecture
Tatemachi Shopping Street Promotion Association
Aid:: Shibuya Culture & Sports Promoting Foundation
Support:: The City of Kanazawa
The Hokkoku Bank, Ltd.
The Hokuriku Bank, Ltd.
The Hokkoku Shimbun
TV Kanazawa

Around the Bend | Toshiko Kitano Groner

Shanx — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:35:24 +0000

Onishi Gallery is pleased to announce a one week summer exhibition of Toshiko Kitano Groner. Around the Bend, an exhibit of water colors, pastels and oils, takes for its theme a richly hued pastel of farm buildings found along a rural road. They come into view as the trail curls into an unseeable future, tempting you to share the thrills and risks of continuing to move forward in life. Groner’s colorful narrative images are soft, but quietly infused with strong emotion. They ask you to share their soulful balance.

Groner was born and grew up in Aichi, Japan. She came to the US to pursue her career as a musician. After a lifetime involvement with music, Groner returned to create poetic and figurative paintings that show her love of color and a flair for hidden narratives. “The pure innocent feelings that I feel in the corner of my heart is reflected in the creative process of my work in visual art as well as the songwriting and music that I create,” says Groner.

Groner paints pastels, oils and water colors, taking advantage of the virtues of each. She revels in the gentle subtleties of water colors as much as she seems to thrill over the rich tones of her oil paintings. The mature, creative works are perpetually in blossom.

Hengao

Shanx — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 06:01:58 +0000

Onishi Gallery is proud to present photographer Tetsuro Sato in his solo show, Hengao, a presentation of photos from the artist’s collection.

Hengao (変顔), translates to “funny face”. In Tetsuro Sato’s work, Japanese models pose for the camera holding a variety of glassware ranging from lenses to vessels. Inspired by the Japanese phenomena purikura (プリクラ), where young girls take pocket sized photos of themselves, Sato himself takes the place of the photo booth. The artist prefers not to edit or distort the film, but lets abstraction occur through the props and body language.

By having the models’ gaze mediated through glass, Sato’s work explores (with a sense of humor) the traditional power structure between viewer and subject. In front of a black background, limbs, eyes, and faces reflect, refract and transcend traditional photo-portraiture. Instead of a passive one-way relationship, Tetsuro Sato encourages the viewer to seek out the beauty in the model, which is often exaggerated to strange proportions. Like the girls in Yoshitomo Nara’s work, the end result is something alien, humorous, and wistful.

Tetsuro Sato was born in Shiga, Japan in 1946. After graduating from Nihon University in 1969, he became the art director and photographer of the Toppan Printing Company. In 1987 he established the Sugarl studio and has had a series of shows in Tokyo and Osaka.

Last Samurai

Shanx — Fri, 20 May 2011 09:20:52 +0000

Hiroaki Tatei — Painter from Fukushima
20% of proceeds of sales will go to Fukushima Prefecture for its Disaster Relief Fund

Onishi Gallery is proud to present Last Samurai, a solo exhibition of Hiroaki Tatei (1937–1995), an artist who was from Fukushima Prefecture. It was Hiroaki Tatei’s dream to have a show in the United States. The support of the Daishichi Sake Brewery, Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Television Broadcasting Company, and Music From Japan have now made it possible.

Born in what is now South Korea, Hiroaki Tatei was a singular and highly individualistic painter who never swerved from his desire to create and show his work on his own terms. Tatei moved with his family to Japan in 1945 and later graduated from the Musashino Art School. He has exhibited widely. His painting, which moved through many artistic stages, boasts bright and startling color and distortion, and at times includes masks from the Japanese Noh Theater and Chinese Peking Opera. In addition, Tatei was inspired by the plastic arts of Mexico and the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and this influence shaped part of his career, as did his travels throughout the United States and Europe.

In his work, Hiroaki Tatei explored the shadow side of the human soul and the intensity of human existence. He was deeply concerned with the dualism of light and dark in humanity, and his work expresses the disparity between inner and outer appearances. Tatei’s fiercely independent life and artistic legacy influenced, and continue to influence, many artists. As Kyo Ito, Head Curator of the Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art has written, “Hiroaki Tatei can be said to be the ‘Last Samurai’ of Japanese art.”

Hiroaki Tatei was a highly independent and individualistic painter. It is often the case that a Japanese artist will join some kind of association and seek recognition through group exhibitions. Tatei rejected this approach and was instead driven by a single-minded determination to have the world accept him on his own terms. This inner resolve is reflected in the violent color schemes and distortion evident in the works in this exhibition. Channeling his creative energy through masks used in Japanese Noh Theater and Chinese Peking Opera, and paying respect to the plastic arts of Mexico and the Mayan civilization, he strove to create a distinct style. His death at the age of 58, however, unfortunately prevented him from fully realizing that objective.

Hiroaki Tatei always longed to exhibit his work in the United States. It is our hope that the present exhibition will at last succeed in winning for this independent-minded artist the recognition he sought in the land of the free.

Tetsuro Sakai
Director, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art

About the Exhibition

Tatei’s Shiseru waga zo (Portrait of my dead self), a painting acclaimed by avant-garde artist Taro Okamoto for its “genius,” is emblematic of his entire body of work. Tatei looked beyond beauty and pleasure, focusing instead on grief, anxiety, and despair: the deeper, darker reaches of the human heart. Informed by the work of expressionists such as Kokoschka and Soutine, he battled to portray the energy generated by the tenacious human grip on life.

Repeated trial and error forged Tatei’s identity as an artist, but his encounter with Mayan culture on his first visit to Mexico was pivotal. Altogether he visited Mexico three times, in 1976, ’78 and ’79. He found the place intensely stimulating and later spoke of his desire to live in Mexico for a time. In this period Tatei became very active, traveling frequently, creating new works, and writing.

Then came a defining encounter with expressionism. In a short article entitled “Concerning Neo-expressionism,” Tatei declared: “It reveals that the shock value of violent hues and daring composition can be used as a tool of expression.” The works he produced from that point on perfectly illustrate his point. At the end of a long journey of discovery, he was now starting to create works that could express his unique inner world exactly as he had always intended.

However, the very passion that was driving him to create was at the same time undermining his health. This fiercely independent painter who shunned the art establishment to carve out his own niche died in March, 1995, having failed to actualize his dream of success in New York. Tatei may have fallen prematurely by the wayside, but in Japan his pure devotion to an ultimately elusive dream stirred the public imagination and secured his status among the giants of contemporary art.

Katsuei Nakamura
Director, Yanagawa Art Museum

1937: Born in what is now South Korea
1945: Family returned to Japan
1960: Graduating from Musashino Art School (present day Musashino Art University), he entered the Design Dept. of Nishikawa Sangyo Co., Ltd.
1971: Left Nishikawa Sangyo to live in France
1974: Returned to Japan, took up residence at Onuma, Hokkaido
1975: One-man exhibition at main Odakyu Dept. Store, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Relocated studio to Fukushima.
1976: Travelled to Mexico
1978: One-man exhibition in Fukushima (The World of Hiroaki Tatei — Mexico and the Mayan Civilization); Created mural for lobby of Fukushima Zenteikan
1979: Travels in Europe, US and Mexico
1983: One-man exhibition in Tokyu Dept. Store, Sapporo
1991: Invited to give one-man show at New York gallery
1992–94: One-man exhibition in Matsuzakaya. Dept. Store, Ginza, Tokyo.
1995: Sudden death due to cerebral thrombosis (aged 58) * 30 one-man shows in Tokyo, Fukushima, Hakodate and Sapporo Katsuei Nakamura Director, Yanagawa Art Museum

Profile: Brief History

Shiseru waga zo (Portrait of my dead self). What can we learn from this, Tatei’s university graduation project, a painting in which hecpresents himself as grimly skeletal? Is it simply the affectationccharacteristic of anguished youth, wavering between proud egocand worthless insecurity? Or does it express an enthusiasm for gazing inward, an attempt to express interior feelings rather thancexternal appearance?

In the eyes of his fans, Hiroaki Tatei was a cheerful and sociablecartist, whose paintings of roses were especially popular. But undercthat confident exterior Tatei had a darker side. While never losing interest in portraying conventional beauty in the form of flowers and women, this darkness in his heart drove him to engage with weightier themes, such as the suffering inherent in life and death. In his paintings, we frequently see people wearing masks or with heavily made-up faces. His clowns and harlequins epitomize such themes, which he also explored using similar materials from the classic Noh drama Ishibashi (Stone Bridge) and the Chinese Peking Opera. In pictures like the reclining women of Honryu (Torrent) and Dokoku (Lamentation), we see the surface stripped away and feel the desires that move the human heart. Tatei perpetually agonized over the challenge of grasping both external appearance and inner reality: the truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness that coexist in all human life.

The second half of Tatei’s artistic life began with a series of works based on his studies in Mexico. For these highly decorative paintings he adds color to representations of Mayan and Aztec wall reliefs and stone sculptures. In a complete departure from his previous style of roughly slapping paint onto the canvas, for these works Tatei uses fine lines to depict the outlines of people and costumes, and applies the coloring carefully and delicately. Tatei abandoned his development of the Mexico series, and these paintings occupy a unique position among his works. Did he discover something important about his creative process while working on this series, causing him to leave it incomplete? Surely the paintings of this period offer us a key to understanding all his works, but this puzzle remains unsolved.

Tatei’s years as an active artist, from the 1960s to the 1990s, were a period in which the boundaries of art expanded greatly. Artists experimented with an ever greater range of techniques and materials, and there was a major re-evaluation of what actions could be considered to be art. Painting human subjects in oils came to be seen as old-fashioned. Nonetheless, Tatei refused to become a member of any art association or accept a financially secure teaching post, instead soldiering on along his chosen solitary path through life, paintbrush in hand. This man who prized his independent spirit above all else could be said to resemble the samurai of the Meiji Era, as they found their philosophy and lifestyles falling more and more out of step with those of a rapidly modernizing Japan. Tatei saw New York as the place to stake his artistic reputation, and he was in the midst of preparations to move here just before his untimely death. Devoting his life to the pursuit of his art, Hiroaki Tatei can be said to be the “Last Samurai” of Japanese art.

Kyo Ito
Head Curator, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art
Hiroaki Tatei – The Last Samurai of Japanese Art
Hiroaki Tatei — Painter from Fukushima
Last Samurai