SHUKADO gallery

その描線は渦を巻き、暴れて、跳ねて、どこへいくのかわからない。恐るべき形相の人物や鳥たちが奇妙な調和を保ちながら、躍動し、ときには可愛らしい所作をして、ふと知的な眼差しを落とす。

最初にアートフェア東京でその作品群を見たとき、強烈な驚きと、ある種の抵抗感を覚えた。

Last year, the painting of yurei (ghost painting) titled "Darkness" by Toko Okamoto had a powerful spotlight in the "Exhibition of Memento Mori" from the collection of novelist,Ichi Orihara held by Vanilla Gallery in Ginza.

Mr. Orihara kindly contributed an essay titled "Smile of Death-wonders on one painting" to the column of two pages spread on the January issue 2019 of ART Collectors'.

Toko Okamoto has been an escort runner of Yasunari Ikenagawho has led a trend of “beauty painting”. The females she depicts are swaying between hope and despair and her painting figuresas painted by a female artist acquired the sympathy of many people. However, I cannot say yes or no whether the females depicted by her deserve beauty painting or not.

He is conspicuous among many artists who are inward oriented. But his dandyism lies in his attitude or behavior, just simple and straightforward.

The relationship has begun since I just happened to buy his work, “still-life”. To put on his work on our catalog we have contacted him. Originally it was exhibited in the bath room of the hotel art fair. I was not a little interested in his singular images of buttock which radiated some strange charm.As I mainly handle Japanese traditional silk painting, I felt some kind of hesitation to western oil painting. It seems to me that he feels a bit cramped and wants more freedom of expression, as the ordinary exhibitions are obliged to conform to the decorum of the society and evade eroticism to some extent . However, Shukado is handling “Japanese Shunga”(erotic art) and I thought this is in the same line with our trade. So, I said to myself “Why not? We should approach him and cooperate each other for freer expression”. Thus began our relationship.

モノクロームの画面の向こうにいる異型の青年が手招きする。

こちらにおいでよ、楽しいよ。・・・そのジャングルでは、動物も人間も人間モドキも共に仲良く暮している。

何故かなつかしいような、穏やかな異世界。

自らが「絵かき」になる前は何人かの画家のモデルでもあり、またコレクターでもあったという異色の経歴を持つ作家です。

絵を描きたい気持ちを抑えて就職したものの、やはり描かずにはおれなかったという、この人の絵は荒削りではあるものの、鬼気迫る迫力をたたえています。

As if the genre “cat” was established in the world of painting, pictures of cats are produced one after another in the world. There are plenty of cute pictures of cats. Among them, a Taiwanese painter, Chen Pei-Yi’s cats are really alive.

中原亜梨沙は、不思議な力を持っている。それは、見る力だ。

メデューサは、見た者を、石に変えてしまうという。彼女は逆だ。何かを見ると、彼女が石に変えられてしまう。

彼女は、見え過ぎてしまうのだ。だから、茄子を見るのも怖いという。

鈴木博雄の作品にただよう愛らしさときたら、もうたまらない。

鈴木は芸大修士課程で「修復」を学び、古画に触れるなかで、独自の絵画観を見出した。日本美術の　本質は、「ユーモア」であると。

For us, Okamoto Toko is an artist Ikenaga Yasunari found. Ikenaga was looking for a “fellow” of a painter who painted a so-called beautiful women painting, like him. Then it was her name that he occasionally mentioned as a mysterious painter whose contact information was unknown. Her works found on the web site had a charm that took off with unfathomable fever and did not diverge our eyes. After many long years of search, we met with the chance and started exhibiting with us.

Ikenaga is the contemporary painter we have first worked with.
When I met for the first time, he drawed only women with almost self-taught.

中原亜梨沙が描く、屹然としたおもむき、凛とした眼差しでこちらを見据える女性像を目にした人も多いだろう。

84年生まれの若手ながら、高い人気をほこる。どこかレトロなイラストレーションを思わせる、線描と、日本画の画材を生かした鮮やかな発色で描かれる生命力に満ちた女性たち。

―――女性像を描かれるようになったのはいつ頃からですか。

中原　幼い頃からよく描いてはいましたが、絵のモチーフとして意識するようになったのは大学生の頃からです。当時はヌードも描いていました。ただ学生の頃は対象を描くという事だけで精一杯で、何を伝えたいのかが曖昧なまま制作していたように思います。

Japanese-style painter Okamoto Toko will have a solo exhibition in coming October. She also plans to show a large piece in Art Taipei in November. People are getting to pay attention to her amazing works.

Solo Exhibition of Takahiro Hara at Zokyudo Gallery

A talk between two Japanese-style painters, Abe Kiyoko and Ikenaga

Composition- the distance between artist and model
Morimoto: Most of your works focuses on the face or the chest, the composition is very impressive. It was like “wow” the first time I ever saw your work.

It was through a site called All About “Nihonga” (Japanese-style painting) which is no longer updated that I came across Yasunari Ikenaga’s work, or the Yubi-school (Yubi means finger in Japanese), in the feature of promising artists.