Toru Kuwakubo has started his career as an artist in a theatrical manner, that is to invent in himself a fictitious painter. He tried to play a role, how a proper painter should act like, in the way he imagined; like painting on the seashore using an easel as the Impressionists; performing to bind a painting on his back as a vagabond painter trying to sell his painting on the road. What he, as an acted artist, often painted was the sea.
The painting style to mount thick layer of paint, without mixing thinning oil, obviously reminds one of Van Gogh painting rather than a contemporary art piece. So the work is a result of the Impressionist technique that is on its way to be called a classic, and the present mindscape of the artist’s put together in one. His earlier paintings owe to his imaginary story, like people on the beach digging a hole. There is one of a flower floating on the surface of the ocean painted in romanticism. Recently he focuses more on the form and color of the motif, in a painting with objects laid out on the beach as if everything in his mind was displayed.
We will be showing large paintings of the seashore, some small landscapes and some portraits by the artist who says “Recently, everything I see seem like the painted motifs”. The title of the show “World Citizens with the White Boxes” comes from his day dream that he had during his stay in Europe; he saw sculptural female figures going up the escalator although they actually were humans. The idea was to suppose ‘what if all humans were sculptures with white pedestals’.
Please come see the contemporary vision of an artist, who has seen Europe in the eyes of a Japanese oil painter from the 20th Century.
Toru Kuwakubo was born in 1978 in Zama-city, the Kanagawa Prefecture. After he has graduated from the Oil Painting Department in Tama Art University in 2002, he has been working based in Tokyo. In 2002, he has got the award-prize for the (Tokyo Wonder Wall) of the public offering which was sponsored by Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. In 2004, Kuwakubo was spotted by Tomio Koyama in GEIZAI-5.
His solo shows are as follows;”The Woman Living on the Beach”（do ART Gallery, Seoul, 2007）“SCENERY OF TOMORROW”（bendixen contemporary art, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2007） “Illusion of the Sea Ebbing Away”（Galerie Davide Gallo, Berlin, Germany, 2006; “From Scratch: BLOOMFIELD”（Two men show with BOTAN YASUYOSHI, Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo, 2006）. His selected group show ia as follows: “Portrait Session” (Hiroshima Modern Art Museum; Nadiff bookshop, Tokyo, 2007). This will be his second show with Tomio Koyama Gallery, after 3 years since the first 2005 show.
Contact information for press materials : Tomoko Omori tel / 813-3642-4090
page top