Shunsuke Imai
“Other than being paintings, there is nothing else to these works, and it is not possible to get into or behind them. It’s like when you look at a flag that flutters in the wind. The fluttering motion makes the flag appear like an object with a certain volume, but it is in fact only a thin piece of cloth, and there’s nothing behind it. When walking around the shady corners of Tokyo at night, one is dazzled by countless glaring neon signs, and when walking into a fast fashion store, one gets drowned in a flood of chemical colors. It appears to me that all those accumulations of color are devoid of meaning, and they are just very large voids. That’s exactly what my paintings are like.”
(Shunsuke Imai, in HAGIWARA PROJECTS surface/volume, 2013)
“When looking at Shunsuke Imai’s works, the first thing they make one feel very intensely is how they are based on the existence of things first and foremost, which is perhaps due to the fact that Imai is open to unforeseen events when he enters the creative process. While the materials his works are based on do exist as such in the respective images, they are photographed or scanned and thereby flattened, and in addition, bent in an irregular fashion, in procedures the artist follows in order to compose his works through multi-layered actions. The entire process is also a tactile one. Such repeated action is inherent as an undercurrent in Imai’s two-dimensional works, while the aspect of resistance as a physical quality of the materials employed becomes an additional premise. Even what appears to be independently made by the ”drawing system for limitless creation,” always involves a tactile process that determines the direction of Imai’s paintings.
For a long time throughout the history of art, paintings have been decodable – or illustratable for that matter – through their connection to specific subjects (texts) related to history, religion or mythology. That involved certain manners to be shared in order to analyze the subjects of paintings and the various attributes they contain. Since the modern age and up to today, paintings have been disconnected from the specific texts they used to depend on, to be communicated through their own creative language and within appropriate environments. In exchange for the liberation of paintings from texts, each painter is now confronted with various conditions such as choices regarding subjects and materials, which he or she needs to settle in the process of realizing his or her work. Within this context, up to the final translation of his works into paintings, Imai goes through a process during which he incorporates the characteristics of the respective materials, while taking advantage also of the physical resistance he feels through their touch. Through such repeated procedures, the artist gradually internalizes the materials he works with, as a result of which their attributes change, and their original meanings disappear. Visually, the works are characterized by a certain visual affinity that emerges between the materials and the finished images, while in the background, the resistance and various other tactile sensations the creator feels in the creation process become the very source of his expression, and in accordance with the above quote, it appears to me that this serves as a key to the “voids” that Imai is seeing through what is merely a superficial world.”
Excerpt tex by Taro Amano, Chief curator of Tokyo Operacity Art Gallery 2022
1978 Born in Fukui prefecture, Japan. Currently works and lives in Tokyo.
Solo Exhibitions
2022 “Skirt and Scene” Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa
2021 “Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, and White” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2020 “color/form/surface/volume” ISETAN SALONE, Tokyo
“point of view point” meets by NADiff, Shibuya PARCO, Tokyo
2019 “range finder” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
“range finder” Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus, Germany
2017 “float” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2015 “equal” Gallery Kart, Tokyo
“equal” See Saw gallery + cafe, Nagoya
2014 “shiseido art egg vol. 8, Shunsuke Imai ‘range finder’” SHISEIDO GALLERY, Tokyo
“color / form”HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2013 “surface / volume” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2012 “surface / volume” LOOP HOLE, Tokyo
2011 “new piece” Remasta, Tokyo
2008 “emptiness” PLAYROOM(NAKAZAKI Tohru + Mizuki ENDO), Mito
2007 “empty eyes” ZENSHI, Tokyo
2006 “patterns” GFAL, Tokyo
2005 “empty babes” APARTMENTS POOL, Tokyo
2003 “Peeping Tom” exhibit LIVE [laiv], Tokyo
2002 “flower & honeybee” exhibit LIVE [laiv], Tokyo
Group Exhibitions
2022 “Roppongi Art Night 2022” Roppongi-area, Tokyo
“Insight 26 ‘connection’ ” Yoshimi Arts, Osaka
“group show” Art Space Kimura Ask?, Tokyo
2021 “World of Color” Fukui Fine Art Museum, Fukui
“FUJI TEXTILE WEEK 2021” Fujiyoshida-city, Yamanashi
“Cliffs and stairs” azumagaoka articulation, Kanagawa
“CADAN ROPPONGI presented by Audi” ROPPONGI HILLS Hills café/Space, Tokyo
“Two-dimensional Expression over Two Eras: Shigeru Izumi and Six Contemporary Artists” Yoshimi Arts, Osaka
“New Space New Works” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2020 “NEW INTIMACIES” SODA, Tokyo
2019 “Pleased to meet you.New Acquisitions in recent years”Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
“bijutsujoron” Fujieda-city, Shizuoka
“Reborn -Update for the Future- Part Ⅱ Creating the Next Stage”Fukui Fine Art Museum, Fukui
2018 “small good things” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
“Paintings Here and Now” Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo
2017 “natsu no tobira - organized by Misako and Jeffrey Rosen” Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, USA
“Spring Fever” Komagome SOKO, Tokyo
“Perspectives (1)” INTERMEDIATHEQUE, Tokyo
2016 “COOL INVITATIONS 3 Curated by Misako & Jeffrey Rosen” XYZ Collective, Tokyo
“Open Theatre KAAT Totsuzen Museum 2016” KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre, Kanagawa
“Through the WindowーContemporary Art in Kasugai” Kazugai Bunka Forum, Aichi
2015 “4 Painters 4 Paintings”mine, Tokyo
“line & color” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
“Shunsuke Imai, Kenjiro Okazaki, Oyama Enrico Isamu Letter” Takuro Someya Contemporary Art, Tokyo
“VOCA: The Vision of Contemporary Art 2015” Ueno Royal Musuem, Tokyo
2014 “The Way of Painitng” Operacity Art Gallery, Tokyo
2013 “DAI CHU SHOW” Citizen’s Gallery of Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo
“KEIJI’” KABEGIWA, Nihon University college of Art, Tokyo
“TOO YOUNG TO BE ABSTRACT” SPROUT curation, Tokyo
“LOVE TOKYO” ROPPONGI HILLS CLUB, Tokyo
“Gallery Show” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
“Imago Mundi” Fondazione Querini Stampali, Venetia2012
“The 31st Outstanding Rising Artists Exhibition” Sompo Japan Museum of Art, Tokyo
2011 “energy:Research Associate Exhibition” Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” hiromiyoshii roppongi, Tokyo
2010 “errortrap, 2-305!!” Musashino Art University, Tokyo
“SSS - expanded painting” MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo
“RA’10” Musashino Art University Museum & Liblary + gFAL・FAL, Tokyo
“Last Breath?” ZAIM GALLERY, Yokohama
2009 “Geba Geba summer show - Geba geba 4 weeks” MISAKO & ROSEN, Tokyo
2008 “Red” ZAIM, Yokohama
“CHOCOLATS DES FUCHU” LOOPHOLE, Tokyo
“NEW TOKYO CONTEMPORARIES” (marunouchi)HOUSE, Shin-Marunouchi BLDG., Tokyo
2007 “something as if we do” cafe parlwr, Nagoya / clas, Nagoya University、Nagoya
“SAKURA meets ARTS” HK+MODE SHIROKANE, Tokyo
2005 “studio show at APARTMENTS POOL” APARTMENTS POOL, Tokyo
2004 “CET04” INO BLDG., Tokyo
“studio show at APARTMENTS POOL” APARTMENTS POOL, Tokyo
2003 “group show” warehouse art project, Musashino Art University, Tokyo
2002 “whap summer selection” warehouse art project, Musashino Art University, Tokyo
“EXHIBITION CHEERS” china rose traffic, Tokyo
Public Collection
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Fukui Fine Arts Museum
Auckland Art Gallery
Shunsuke Imai CVshunsuke-imai-cv-en.pdf
Ryota Nojima
As painting and drawing mediums of his creation, Ryota Nojima ( b. 1987) is pursuing his original world of expression that is free from conventional styles in ways that painting humans, sceneries, and animals, etc. with light tone of color and manga touch of brush, while also creating highly abstract paintings.
At a glance, it is difficult to sufficiently understand his artwork which combines elements of narrative and abstract painting. However, his pictures induce a rich visual experience where various factors such as images, shapes, colors, and brushworks respond to the viewer’ s sensibility and evoke diverse stories and images of the world. Nojima himself mentions that he does not depict specific objects: he creates a painting by recalling fragments of experiences and feelings in his memories from physical existences such as colors of paints on the canvas, shapes accidentally created, and brushworks, and combines them into artwork.
The artist’ s primal and firm faith to connect with other people and the world through pictures, and his instinct towards artistic creation produce a picture plane where a feeling of tension coexists with a sense of openness, which apply consistently to his wide variety of expressions.
1987 Born in Tokyo, Japan. Currently works and lives in Tokyo.
2012 BA. Musashino Art University
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
2021 “Shared kitchen” Fujimidai-Tunnel, Tokyo
2016 “NOJIMA PROJECTS” HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo
2015 “TWS-Emerging 2015 vol.5” Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo
Group Exhibitions
2022 ”Tsumujikaze” OGUMAG+, Tokyo
2021 ”○○life” SET project Space Lewisham, London
2020 ”Open Studio Hive Vol.5” Artists Studio HIVE, Tokyo
2018 ”Invisible Strings in Spring” Devening Projects,Chicago,USA
2016 ”Art show” Namisagashitekkara, Kyoto
2014 “Tokyo Wonderwall 2014”Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo
2013 “Imago Mundi” Foundazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia, Italy
2011 “RIKEN Exhibition Project 2011” RIKEN, Kanagawa
“Open Studio Levillette House” Levillette House, Tokyo