ART OSAKA 2023｜MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY

ART OSAKA 2023

Galleries Section

Dates

July 28-30, 2023

Preview for VIPs: July 28 1-3pm

*VIP invitation holders only

Preview: July 28 3-7pm

*Invitee and Press only

Open to the Public: July 29 11am-7pm

July 30 11am-5pm

Contact

info@megumiogita.com

Osaka City Central Public Hall 3F

Small Assembly Hall, Booth W-2

1-1-27 Nakanoshima Kita-ku Osaka 530-0005 JAPAN

ART OSAKA 2023

Yoshimasa Tsuchiya
Fukuo Tanaka

Mrs. Zukie

Gary Baseman

Aof Smith

Kengo Nakamura

Karim Hamid

Aya Cagiu

Yoshimasa Tsuchiya was born in 1977 and specialised in sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts, and completed PhD, Sculpture Conservation there in 2007. Tsuchiya has established the unique painting method, in which light colours appear faintly inside from the white surface of wood carving. He also uses techniques used in Buddhist statues, whereby the head is split open and stone or glass eyes are inserted, to create works with a mysterious look. The glass eye is produced by artist Fukuo Tanaka. At first glance, the works are instantly recognisable as Tsuchiya's, and can be described as ‘the latest classics’ with timeless originality and the power to appeal to both the present and the future. Tsuchiya's motifs are animals as symbols, which embody intangible ideas in the shape of living creatures. The images of animals that appear in myths and tales are the origin of his ideas, and the creatures born from them have repeatedly mutated and cross-bred, taking the inspiration from improved garden plants and ornamental fish, and have developed into a variety of forms.

Yoshimasa Tsuchiya, Nine-Tailed Fox, 2023, 55 x 83 x 35 cm, painted camphor wood, borosilicate glass by Fukuo Tanaka

Fukuo Tanaka, who creates works using heat-resistant glass with high transparency called borosilicate glass, studied at an art school and now presents works under his own brand ‘Topnoch’. He is in charge of creating staring glass eyes with the white, irises and pupils for Yoshimasa Tsuchiya’s wood carvings, as we saw at Tsuchiya’s exhibition ‘Phylogenesis’ in 2022. Tanaka, who has pursued the characteristics of borosilicate glass, freely creates dainty and delicate works with the distinctive technique called ‘inside-out’. He uses a burner to heat another glass, that is dotted on the outside of glass rod, and change it into various patterns as it melts and goes inside. Then he creates what he imagines and shapes the whole at the same time. The unique colours are created by intricate layers of various glass and vaporised metals such as pure gold and silver. The works are reminiscent of natural and universal beauty, such as snow crystals, leaf veins, which exist in the world according to certain rules without human hands.

Fukuo Tanaka, Selfish-04【singular point】, 2023, 31 x 11 x 11cm, borosilicate glass, beeswax on white ash

補正_トリFacial Expression Glitter Edition 1.jpeg

Mrs. Zukie is a contemporary artist and muralist from New York City and the creator and designer of the Zukie character. Mrs. Zukie attended C.W. Post University and received her BFA. Mrs. Zukie has participated in art shows and charity events worldwide. She also travels to events like New York Comic Con and DesignerCon to showcase her work and to meet the fan base. Her work is decorated with simplified characters that evoke the influence of Japanese popular culture and the world of ‘spheres, cylinders and cones’ once captured by Paul Cézanne, standing side by side as if in a group photograph. Their various expressions - toothy smiles, sticking out tongues and winking - are painted in different colours to form a vivid whole. The paintings, which might be described as abstract or all-over, combine with a light, accessible style to create the artist’s unique view that recalls Western art from the 20th century onwards with the cartoonish generosity in Asia.

Mrs. Zukie, Facial Expression Glitter Edition #1, 2023, 30.48 x 30.48 cm, acrylic, glitter, epoxy resin on

wood panel

Gary Baseman is an interdisciplinary artist who investigates history, heritage, and the human condition (especially love, longing, and loss). Through unique iconography and fantastical visual narratives that celebrate ‘the beauty of the bittersweetness of life,’ his work brings together the worlds of popular culture and fine art. Baseman (b. 1960) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California when lifestyles dramatically shifted and politics and popular culture seeped into the home. The influence of media and Hollywood, blended with LA’s influential art scene, led to how Baseman would perceive and produce art. Baseman witnessed how artists challenged traditional art practices and crossed boundaries, and would later coin the term ‘Pervasive Art’ to reflect his multifaceted creative output much like his predecessors and admired artists who also resisted the confines of media, styles, purposes, and audiences. Baseman transforms everyday observations and experiences into art that includes drawing, painting, photography, video, installation art, performance, as well as fashion, toy design and social media.

Gary Baseman, La Danse (Droogs), 2012, 45.6 x 60.5 cm, acrylic on canvas (framed)

Aof Smith completed his Master of Fine Arts Program in Visual Arts, KMITL, in 2013 and has been based in Bangkok, Thailand ever since. In 2017, he held a solo exhibition ‘SILENT RAVAGE’ in Bangkok, where his unique interpretation of American pop surrealism and lowbrow art, heightened new affinity between the themes and expression of his work, and he rose to prominence as an up-and-coming young artist celebrating dreamlike worlds. He held his first solo exhibitions in the US in 2022, and in Japan entitled ‘HERITAGE’ at MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY in 2023. Smith's work, set against the backdrop of contemporary society, combines manga, anime, science fiction and mechanisms come together to create playful animals and monsters in computer-graphics-like forms. He has also developed his own painting style, and the sense of colour creates vivid and tasteful visual effects that highlight the characters there.

Aof Smith, Carry on, 2023, 30 x 40 cm, oil on linen (framed)

Kengo Nakamura studied Japanese painting at Tama Art University and has created unique paintings using motifs that represent contemporary society, such as emoticons in emails, floor plans of one-room flats, cartoon balloons and character silhouettes. In addition to collaborating with creators from other genres, he has organised exhibitions and symposia, and is one of the leading artists of our time. In recent years, his reputation overseas has been growing, with his first solo exhibition in Taiwan, ‘Modern Japanese Japanese-style Painting’, held at AKI Gallery in 2021, and an exhibition of his works at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taiwan in the same year.

Kengo Nakamura, Without Me, 2023, 65.2 x 65.2 cm, mineral pigment, pigment and acrylic on Japanese paper mounted on wood panel (framed)

Karim Hamid was born in Los Angeles, California in 1966, studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in the UK, then received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1994, and now lives and works in Colorado. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the US, and his first solo exhibition in Japan, ‘Upon The End of Play and Infancy’, was held at MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY in 2023. The constant idealisation and consumption of the female body, from classical art history to contemporary popular culture, has been a consistent theme in Hamid's work. Referencing a variety of sources, he focuses on what the male gaze signifies by depicting distorted and exaggerated images of women. The seemingly inefficient process of deconstruction and construction, painting and erasing repeatedly, gives his work a sense of ‘time and space’, and leaves room for interpretation.

Karim Hamid, fa.fn69 (Lemon Top Angels), 2023, 50.2 x 40 cm, mixed media, oil and acrylic paint on

wood panel

Aya Cagiu graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Tama Art University in 2001 and has continued to create embroidered works. In recent years Cagiu has established herself as an artist, exhibiting her works at Takamatsu Art Museum and Yokosuka Museum of Art, and the group exhibition tour ‘In the Genes, Taking Marvelous Meiji Craftsmanship into the Future’ that started in 2023. Through her works, in which she puts her heart and soul into each stitch, Cagiu asks us to revisit the nature of prayer, which has now become a mere formality. Cagiu has been searching for a unique expression that would give embroidery, which is often seen as a craft, a work of art. Cagiu’s work is based on the sensibility and imagination nurtured by her relationship with nature, in a chaotic, materially and informationally saturated society today.

Aya Cagiu, Butterfly, 2014, 15 x 20 x 2 cm, silk embroidery on silk cloth (framed)