Naoto Sunohara
≪Presence≫ 2021 / 1300x1620x30 / Japanese paper, mineral pigments, Sumi ink
Naoto Sunohara studied at Tohoku University of Art and Design and has mainly drawn mountains based on the sketches he drew while climbing. This year, following the VOCA exhibition 2021, he was selected for the Nikkei Nihonga Award exhibition for Japanese painting, with his style that reflects his physical sensations and experiences is drawing attentions.
His solo exhibition, the main purpose is to draw fragments obtained in the process of scaling mountain and pieces that are naturally contained, and while showing the traces of one's movement in 3D, it will be appreciated while expanding the area of Japanese painting. From the view of a person who climb the mountain cannot see the whole mountain, yet can see various stones and soil. I think that it is a fragment of the mountain which can be drawn only because Sunohara is drawing the mountain by himself.
Among them, "Presence" is a work that Sunohara drew for his solo exhibition 2021, is giving the surprise by the pressure that came out of his dynamic strocks when we entered the gallery. and especially when he entered the gallery, At first glance, it tends to look like an action painting with an emphasis on chance, however they are results of planned composition and dynamic feeling of the brush flow created by the physicality of the young artist, based on the sketches and impressions he gained when climbing the mountain.
Please enjoy while imagining all the fragments related to the mountain by the artist.
Masatake Kozaki
≪MUGEN -Tree of life-≫ 2020 / 2400 x 1700mm / Wooden panel, hemp paper, foil, mineral pigments, acrylic
Masatake Kozaki depicts an utopian world by scattered clouds of gold and silver leaf on a flat surface of whitewash, filled with chimera-like animals, plants, vehicles from future, and creatures of another world scattered between the clouds. "MUGEN -Tree of life-" is a work drawn by Kozaki for his solo exhibition last year which consists of three vertical panels. From the middle panel, the life from the past, the present and the future are connected to each other. The motif of "Tree of Life", which was the most symbolic image (chimera) for Kozaki himself is centering the screen. This work was selected for Nikkei Nihonga Award Exhibition this year.
Tokuro Sakamoto
≪Breath(Wire)≫ 2012 / 1400 x 1400 mm / Kochi hemp paper, acrylic
Sakamoto depicts large margins and cuts out landscapes such as sky, mountains, roads, power lines, traffic lights, and playground equipment in parks, making people aware of the absence of human's presence. This work was exhibited at Nerima Art Museum's exhibition "Wire Painting Exhibition - From Kiyoshi Kobayashi to Akira Yamaguchi-" this year. Among other unique artworks in which wires and telephone poles were painted in each work, we assume that this work has been remembered by many people since it is the last piece to end the exhibition by contemporary art.
If you are interested in Sakamoto's work, including this one, which shows its presence by drawing the absence of human, please contact Art Front Gallery.
Nozomi Tanaka
≪I know the day≫ 2017 / 606x455 mm / Panel, linen, whitewash, dried water, mineral pigments, Sumi ink, foil
Nozomi Tanaka, who won the grand prize at the VOCA exhibition 2014, is an artist who does a lot of fieldwork and expresses pictorially based on her experience. If you look at the artwork, anthropomorphic rabbits are arranged on the screen to depict the traditional life in the countryside. Nozomi says that the title of the work "I know the day", means knowing the technology of the calendar and fire. These ancestral techniques overlapped with the slash-and-burn methods she had seen in Yamagata before, and became the background of this work. In the Shonai area of Yamagata, rabbits are familiar animals because of their relationship with the Gassan faith. It is considered to be a messenger of the god of Gassan, who symbolizes the world of the afterlife, and a mediator between the the other world and this world. By portraying people who continue to burn mountains until the present day as rabbits, this work expresses the connection between their ancestors (the afterlife) and the present.
Takako Azami
≪Pine Tree1401≫ 2014 / 2000 x 2000 mm / Sumi ink, whitewash, pigments, mineral pigments, cloud-skin hemp paper, panels
This is Takako Azami's work, who led the way to young artists with Japanese paintings at the Art Front Gallery as a senior who won the grand prize at the Nikkei Nihonga Awards 2018. This work depicts a pine tree that artists like to draw along with plums, bamboo, cherry blossoms, and Cercis chinensis. She sketches repeatedly and grasp the structure of the tree while draw it on the screen. After drawing the branches of the tree on the back of the Japanese paper, Azami overlaps the ink dots as the leaves. Once the ink marks are left, she does not erase them but repeats the process from time to time checking the surface conditions.