ACT 2024 - Artists Contemporary TOKAS - 6th Edition - Ohba Takafumi, Suga Yushi, YOF = Yanagawa Tomoyuki + Ohara Takayoshi + Furusawa Ryu
Layers of Optical Experience
Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo
24 February - 24 March 2024
What you see by standing there…
With the internet pervading every aspect of life, we are bombarded with huge numbers of images on a daily basis. When attending an exhibition, many people have already viewed the works on someone’s social media account, and perhaps even feel as if they have been to the venue before. With increasing opportunities to see art online, it is not always essential to see it in real life. Nonetheless, the thrill and wonder of encountering artworks face to face cannot be fully captured on a screen and remains irreplaceable.
This exhibition features the works of two artists and one group; Ohba Takafumi, Suga Yushi, YOF (Ohara Takayoshi + Furusawa Ryu + Yanagawa Tomoyuki) that visually interpret the structure of cognition in various ways. We encourage you to come to the venue, and experience the many-layered disruptions of technique and structure that emerge when engaging with these works in person.
The two artists and one artist group featured in this exhibition – Ohba Takafumi, Suga Yushi, and YOF – endeavor to visually capture the structure of cognition. Ohba focuses on human memory, creating paintings from photographs in which he employs various methods of making and erasing marks, leaving traces that build up in layers. Suga explores painterly phenomena emanating from the physicality of brushwork and the material nature of the paint, applying paint uniformly on urethane-coated surfaces for a mirror-like finish, then selectively scraping it away and using the removed paint to create complementary works. YOF, a collective of Ohara Takayoshi, Furusawa Ryu, and Yanagawa Tomoyuki, deliver novel optical experiences through exploration and practice involving color and space in visual media, manipulating the emergence of color through the interplay of specialized lighting and spatial design.
These artists’ works please the eye with intricate surfaces and textures, while requiring viewers to move around the venue and adopt different perspectives to apprehend them completely. Viewing the works in person leads to a range of discoveries, and physically engaging with them at length invites reconsideration of the basic act of “seeing an object and recalling a memory.”
The timing and nature of cognition following perception, the formation of memories, and the forging of associations with other events differ from person to person, and the variations among these process are what make our world so multifaceted. We invite you to enjoy these artists’ wide-ranging explorations and innovative creations in person at the exhibition venue.
OHBA Takafumi
Ohba Takafumi explores the cognitive structures of remembering and forgetting, translating these concepts into two-dimensional works. His seemingly simple creations are the result of intricate, multi-layered processes. Working from a photograph, Ohba roughly traces its outlines, then applies layers of mineral pigment using Nihonga (Japanese-style painting) techniques. By brushing water over these pigments, he creates gradations of tones as they dissolve. Subsequently, he adds layers of thin paper, further defining the translucent outlines and rendering parts of the painting three-dimensional. At this stage, Ohba revisits the original image and refers to other photographs of similar scenarios. By selecting images from these photographs and strategically placing them on the canvas, he transcends mere replication of a photograph, bringing landscapes reimagined through the lens of memory to life from his own viewpoint. The application of platinum and aluminum to certain areas of the pale surfaces endows them with varying luminosity.
Having focused thus far on what he deems “ideal landscapes,” Ohba now turns his attention to “false memories” of things that did not actually occur and “appropriated memories” that actually belong to others. He adopts a novel approach, drawing forth new landscapes by manipulating seemingly humdrum photographs taken by acquaintances and interrogating ostensibly shared memories of specific times, all while engaging in dialogues with others.
Born in Osaka in 1988. Lives and works in Hiroshima. Withdrew at the end of the second term of the doctoral program of Hiroshima City University in 2018. Recent exhibitions: “daily scenes,” Cafe and Gallery KANEYA, Shimane, 2022, “False memories of a certain family,” GALLERY RYO, Tokyo, 2022, “biscuit gallery group exhibition ‘re’,” biscuit gallery, Tokyo, 2022. Recent award: “The 72nd Annual Competition of Art in Yamaguchi Prefecture,” Excellent Work Award, Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum, 2019.
SUGA Yushi
Suga Yushi participated in “ TWS -Emerging 2015 ” at Tokyo Arts and Space. The artist explores painterly phenomena emanating from the physicality of brushwork and the material nature of the paint, above and beyond clearly rendered images. He has recently adopted a distinctive style of presentation in which he pairs two works with the same or related motifs, highlighting their contrasts and correlations. Suga begins with a urethane-coated surface for a mirror-like finish and uniformly applies a single shade of paint, then scrapes it away selectively before it dries. He then uses the removed paint to create a companion piece, heightening a sense of duality. His motifs include fictive liminal spaces, designed using 3D computer graphics, and unpopulated landscapes. Lustrous strokes rendered visible by scraping away paint, coupled with the cool glow of the underlying surface, evoking the feelings of tension and emptiness that pervade our uncertain world.
In this exhibition, with the theme of “liminal,” Suga unveils his first installation, displaying the computer-graphic models he depicts alongside his paintings. This series of paintings, created using a range of techniques and manifesting as paired sets, merge reality and fiction. They emerge as a novel mode of expression, occupying the liminal space between media while inseparably uniting them.
Suga Yushi was born in Nagasaki in 1988. Lives and works in Ibaraki. Graduated with an MA in Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2017. Recent exhibitions: “liminal,” MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY, Tokyo, 2023, “SUMMER SHOW,” MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY, Tokyo, 2022, “Day dream,” ISETAN SALONE, Tokyo, 2022. Recent award: “The 4th CAF Awards,” Special Jury Prize, 2017.
YOF - Yanagawa Tomoyuki, Ohara Takayoshi, Furusawa Ryu
The artist collective YOF participated in “OPEN SITE 2019-2020” at Tokyo Arts and Space. YOF, consisting of Ohara Takayoshi, Furusawa Ryu, and Yanagawa Tomoyuki, conducts pragmatic research on color and space and explores the scope of image extension in digital media, thereby interrogating the current state of visual expression. In their 2019 installation 2D Painting, exhibited as part of the TOKAS “OPEN SITE” open call program, they delivered an experience of alternation between two- and three-dimensional perception using strategic lighting of objects with stripped-away textures, negating the depth of the three-dimensional space. YOF’s recent installations include those employing monitors to delve into interplay between the viewer’s gaze and the video space.
In this exhibition, they investigate the inherent conceptual boundaries of objects by creating abrupt visual disconnects between the subjects and their surrounding environments in actual space, much as pictures are incongruously cut and pasted in digital imaging.
YOF is an artist group formed in 2015. OHARA Takayoshi was born in 1986. Graduated with an MA in Film and New Media from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2012. FURUSAWA Ryu was born in 1984. Enrolled in the doctoral program of Film and New Media Studies at Tokyo University of the Arts. YANAGAWA Tomoyuki was Born in 1985. Graduated with an MA in Media Creations from the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences [IAMAS] in 2013. Recent exhibitions: “Colour and Psyche – Chromatics, where science and aesthetics interplayed of serendipity,” Tokyo Zokei University Art Museum, 2023, “Parallax Void theca 2023ss Exhibition,” theca, Tokyo, 2023, “Flowing Windows, Passing Eyes,” art space kimura ASK?, Tokyo, 2023. Recent award: “The Project to Support Emerging Media Arts Creators”, 2022.
TOKYO ARTS AND SPACE HONGO - TOKAS
2 -4-16 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
ACT(Artists Contemporary TOKAS)Vol. 6 "Layers of Optical Experience"
Updated 18-02-2025