Dates: Jan 12 – Feb 10, 2018
Location: McNamara Art Projects, Hong Kong
Opening reception: Friday, Jan 12, 18:00 – 20:00

Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to present “HOTEL PARAISO”, Tomoo Gokita’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong featuring new paintings at McNamara Art Projects from January 12 to February 10.

Gokita has been producing black and white gouache paintings inspired by magazines and photographs of the 1960s and 1970s. He employs a unique method and collage-like approach to create paintings of varied subjects including portraits, still lifes, and abstracts that are sophisticatedly rendered and diversely expressive.

This exhibition features paintings of the colorful people who gather at an imaginary place called “HOTEL PARAISO”. Although Gokita visited an actual hotel of the same name while in Mexico, the HOTEL PARAISO of his new paintings is fictional and, like “paradise”, can be located neither in space nor time. HOTEL PARAISO is a constructed image comprising the artist’s fragmentary memories of his trip to Mexico and his childhood introduction to the word “Paraiso” through Haruomi Hosono’s 1978 album of the same name. The extraordinary space of the hotel functions as a stage for narratives concerning the painted characters’ emotions and secrets. The vividly depicted scenes and meticulously rendered backgrounds, organic forms, and other pictorial elements enhance the works’ depth and appeal. 

Tomoo Gokita was born in 1969 in Tokyo. His drawings made with pencil, charcoal and ink on paper first began to receive attention in the late 1990s. In 2000, Lingerie Wrestling, a book collecting the same works was published. After an exhibition in New York, his works were featured in numerous solo exhibitions in Japan and abroad. In 2012, his work was featured in “The Unseen Relationship: Form and Abstraction” at the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art. In 2014, “THE GREAT CIRCUS”, a solo exhibition of Gokita’s works, was held at the same museum. A solo exhibition of Gokita’s works will be held at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in April 2018.　He is currently based in Tokyo.

Cooperation: McNamara Art Projects　
202, The Factory, 1 Yip Fat Street, Hong Kong　   
tel: +852 9220 0848  e-mail: info@mcnartprojects.com　website: www.mcnartprojects.com
Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00 Closed on Sun, Mon, and National Holidays

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