EXHIBITIONS
Shinpei Kusanagi “A VIEW FROM A PLATFORM”
Dates: Dec 10, 2021 – Jan 30, 2022 [Winter Holidays: Dec 25 – Jan 1]
Location: SHOP Taka Ishii Gallery, Hong Kong
By appointment only, please contact us via telephone or fill out this form.
SHOP will implement necessary measures to prevent coronavirus infections.
SHOP Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to present “A VIEW FROM A PLATFORM”, a solo exhibition of paintings by Shinpei Kusanagi from December 10, 2021 to January 30, 2022. This will be his fifth solo presentation with the gallery and his first in Hong Kong, featuring 14 paintings from 2017 – 2021.
Kusanagi’s paintings are characterized by the staining of untreated fabrics with layers of translucent acrylic colours. Between flows of unrestricted colours emerge wavering abstract landscapes that are both vibrant and tranquil, with details that subtly evoke natural scenes such as trees, foliage, flowers, ponds and butterflies. His paintings invite viewers to conceive imaginations and recollections of places rather than precise depictions. More than ever in recent years, the artist incorporates swift and spontaneous brushstrokes while leaving areas of the canvas bare, allowing the ambiguity of his subjects to constitute a constantly shifting picture between the here and now and an unknown elsewhere.
“At the end of the book [Kiyosumi and its Environs], I compared the place where I stand to a station platform: ‘I want to stay on the station platform, which is like an intermediate area where many trains and people come and go every day, but no one stays there, and keep looking at the scenery that should be there in the here and now, which sometimes peeps out from between the fog of reality and leads to someone else.”
Shinpei Kusanagi (excerpted from 2021 artist statement)
Recently in 2019, the artist moved into a new studio surrounded by windows. He was reminded of the analogy by being in a place that allowed him to observe the world around him passing by during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has become the basis of the creation of his latest works.
Shinpei Kusanagi (b. Tokyo, 1973) is a Tokyo-based artist. His recent solo exhibitions include, “A view from a platform” (2021) and “Something is happening which is not happening at all” (2020) both by Altman Siegel Gallery, online. Kusanagi’s work was featured in the group exhibition “MOT Satellite 2017 SPRING – by the deep rivers” Tokyo (2017) and “VOCA”, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo (2011). He has also provided images for numerous book covers. In 2013, Kyuryudo published Kiyosumi kaiwai (Kiyosumi and its Environs), a book of Kusanagi’s images and texts. Taka Ishii Gallery has presented solo exhibitions with Kusanagi in 2018, 2015, 2013 and 2009.
