EXHIBITIONS

Nobuya Hoki

Dates: Jan 20 – Feb 25, 2012
Location: Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoto
Opening reception: Friday, Jan 20, 18:00 – 20:00

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Taka Ishii Gallery Kyoto is pleased to announce our solo exhibition with Nobuya Hoki from Friday, January 20 to Saturday, February 25. At his third exhibition at Taka Ishii Gallery following a show in Kyoto in 2008 then in Tokyo in 2010, he will be presenting new works, Nihon-ga (Double Line Painting), created with two drawing materials or oil paint, as well as drawings that are made from dots.

I noticed that whenever I draw one extra line in a deeper field in the negative space, the drawing’s construction changes dramatically regardless of how detailed it is. There is a line that is particularly relevant to my current work, which I call the “line that draws energy from the exterior of the frame”; by drawing it the relationship between each individual line becomes complex, and I have been making work such that this particular line significantly changes the relationship between negative space and line.

– Nobuya Hoki

Hoki explores a unique expression of dots and lines on a step-by-step basis. Since the 2010 exhibition “Garden of Painting” (The National Museum of Art, Osaka), he has extensively contemplated the “black line” and the “ground (white)”. This time Hoki has taken the black lines that has previously been separated into two colors to four colors, creating vibrant body of work that takes these four colors and develops their relationships, playing two colors against each other. He progresses his work within two-dimensional space, taking into account line, plane, scale and the relationship of space. Fully utilizing the characteristics of carefully selected materials and colors, he engages with painterly illusion and depth of space. Hoki’s line, in its physical and improvisational manifestation, employs daring strokes that give birth to abstraction as well as figuration such as small animals, characters and insects. These playful images are placed improvisationally on the plane through skillful drawing. This is an opportunity to witness the latest works of Hoki, who takes unique approaches to explore the possibilities of painting.

Nobuya Hoki was born 1966 in Kyoto. After completing his masters at the Kyoto City University of Arts, he has been based in Kyoto while exhibiting nationally and internationally. In recent years he has exhibited at “Garden of Painting” (The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 2010), “Resonance” (Suntory Museum, Osaka, 2010). His work is included in the collections of Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Toyota; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Takamatsu; Okazaki City Museum, Aichi.