Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore

Masahiko Kuwahara, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito

Masahiko Kuwahara, Yoshitomo Nara and Hiroshi Sugito, and Masahiko Kuwahara are the artists Tomio Koyama Gallery has been representing since its establishment. This exhibition will showcase works by these three representative artists of the gallery.

Jeremy Dickinson, Nana Funo, Satoshi Hirose, Takuro Kuwata, Satoshi Ohno, Kishio Suga, Yutaka Watanabe

Zhao Xuebing: Path in the Woods

Zhao says, "Lines have characteristic of freedom and energy, and at the same time require thoughts and compositions. I like pure lines and the relationship they have with each other. " Every piece, landscape paintings or improvised drawings, shows powerful and spectacular intensity and Zhao's stunning ability and perseverance on details.

"Central Park" is the series that Zhao first presented in 2011 and he is still continuously adding new works to the series. At a glance, the contours in the paintings are blurry and the edges seem to be like ink spreading on paper. But with a thoughtful gaze, it can be observed that the details consist of fine interwoven thin line strokes, which Zhao repetitively applied on the canvas. While there is one single tone in each painting, the depiction of light and shadows is abundant. Although the media is oil on canvas, there is a subtle similarity to Chinese traditional ink painting.

The "Central Park" series comes from the inspiration that Zhao acquired when he was in New York. Inspired by the landscapes of Central Park's back wood area, he preserved the beautiful sceneries in his paintings.

This exhibition presents mainly the paintings with the motifs of trees and leaves. The perspectives are provided from various distances, and sequential viewing of the works evokes the feeling of wandering in the woods. Zhao's extraordinary ability to vividly represent light makes the trees and leaves expressive, and eachtoneindividually depicts day or night. Withering leaves and falling branches pave the ground and scatter the water, and the landscapes areawashedwith coldcolors and are overwhelmed with deep solitariness and desolation - this forms a contrast to the bustle of urban life outside Central Park.

Zhao Xuebing was born in 1967 in Beijing, China, and he started to learn painting when he was a child. Zhao spent five years in Paris from 2002-2007, and two years in New York from 2007-2009; he currently lives and works in Shanghai, China.
 
For more information: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/exhibitions_en/zhao-xuebing-exhibition-tkgs-2012_en/

Tomoko Nagai: Dramatic Moments

Tomoko Nagai was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1982.  In Nagai’s works, various motifs, animals such as bear, cat and horse, colorful trees and mushrooms, young girls or imaginary figures, are arranged in backgrounds of forest or room, as if they were theatrical settings. She employs various materials and creates paintings and installations that seem to address a condensed world while sharing a unique sense of space.

The following is what Nagai states about this exhibition.

“In daily life, we might encounter some moments that ordinary sceneries magically become dramatic scenes in a sudden. These happenings are like fate. It is a serendipitous conjunction of various elements, such as the time, the season, even our moods. For example, the moment when leaves fall all at once because of an unexpected wind and being surrounded by yellow. While producing the works, I wish I could condense those precious and dramatic moments in pictures along with my wishes and ideals, and form an exhibition as if it is packed in a vacuum pack.”

Around 10 paintings and 15 drawings of new works, which depict these miracle dramatic moments, will be on view in this show. In one of the gallery spaces, Nagai will also conduct an installation in which the space is like the realized world from her works.

Nagai has been involved in a project, in which she painted the walls of the swimming pool in a nursery school located in Shichigahama town, Miyagi, one of the stricken areas caused by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 in Japan. The nursery building, which is currently being constructed, has been fully funded and supported by Singapore Red Cross. It is also a design by a Japanese emerging architect, Ippei Takahashi, which won the top prize in the proposal competition for Toyama Nursery in Shichigahama Town in 2011. (The construction will be completed in March 2013). The models and drawings for the project and two of the drafts Nagai drew for the swimming pool will also be presented in this exhibition.

Atsushi Fukui: Summer into Winter

The scenes that appear in Atsushi Fukui's works are often depicted delicately in vivid colors or in a tone of cold blue. Some motifs embrace the details that made their expressions easy to recognize, but some only consist of outlines and variation in color while remaining certain distance from viewers. The motifs such as mushrooms or trees, a young girl in the forest or a deer standing in a room are arranged surrealistically in the pictures. It seems to be a hallucinated world existing in a peculiar space filled with tranquillity and peace. During his youth, Fukui was fascinated with American and European science fictions as well as the comics and cartoons, and these influences are related to the touch and the theme in his works.

In this exhibition, new paintings by Fukui will be on view. On top of the painting with landscape of snow, there are also recently developed motifs, for example the axe, in those works. Fukui stated that he altered his living environment in the previous summer. He moved away from the city and started a life in a place with an elevation of 1000 meters in the mountain. He experienced a significant change in climate from the hot season to the frost. The difference occurs in many ways -- not only the scenery around him but also his everyday chores including gathering firewood and using axes and chainsaws-- and therefore brings about the new chemistry in his works. The title of this exhibition, "Summer into Winter", is taken from an album by Ben Watt which is one of Fukui's favorite. It indicates both the seasonal change on Fukui's timeline and the visual transformation that is going to take place at the gallery space located in the tropical country.

Atsushi Fukui was born in 1966, in Aichi prefecture. In 1989, he completed his B.A. in oil painting at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He is currently based in Yamanashi prefecture. His first show at Tomio Koyama Gallery is the group exhibition "morning glory" curated by Yoshitomo Nara (Tokyo, Japan, 2002.) Thereafter, he held solo exhibitions "bedroom paintings" (2002), "teenage ghosts (and other scary stories)" (2004), "the eyes of the midnight sun" (2006), and "I see in you" (2009), "Uncommon Deities-Prints" (2011), followed by this latest solo exhibition at the gallery's new branch in Singapore. His major group exhibitions include "ORANGE SKY" (2011, RH Gallery, New York), "Punkt Art 2011 David Sylvian-in cooperation with Atsushi Fukui uncommon deities" (2011, Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway), "convolvulus: Atsushi Fukui / Hideaki Kawashima" (2009, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei), "The Masked Portrait" (2008, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York), "ROPPONGI CROSSING" (2004, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo). 

For more information:
www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/exhibitions_en/atsushifukui-exhibition-summerintowinter-tkgs-2013_en

Collection

TOMIO KOYAMA GALLERY Singapore is pleased to announce an exhibition of the gallery's collection. Artists to be presented include Toru Kuwakubo(Japan), Mika Ninagawa(Japan), David Ratcliff(US), Diego Singh(Argentina), Hiroshi Sugito(Japan) and Ian Woo(Singapore).

For more information about each artist, please access to the following webpages.
- Toru Kuwakubo(Japan): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/kuwakubo_en/
- Mika Ninagawa(Japan): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/ninagawa_en/
- David Ratcliff(US): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/ratcliff_en/
- Diego Singh(Argentina): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/singh_en/
- Hiroshi Sugito(Japan): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/sugito_en/
- Ian Woo(Singapore): http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/mailnews/singapore201303/IanWoo.pdf

Ian Woo: How I Forgot to be Happy

Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Ian Woo, his first exhibition with the gallery. 

Born in 1967, Ian Woo is one of the most significant figures in contemporary art in Singapore. This exhibition will present Woo's recent works from 2012 to 2013. 

The lineup of works emphasises the materiality of paint and its shifting and transitioning attribution to form and space. 

The structure of each painting is layered out in a moire of tectonic instantaneity, where compositions of foreground and background are at the brink of losing their distinctions. 

The merging and collapse of forms between spaces give the observer a sense of cognitive play between each fragment and its imaginary counterpoint.

Artist Reception

May 3 (Fri.) 19:00 starts

Artist in Conversation with Adele Tan (Curator, The National Art Gallery Singapore)

May 18 (Fat.) 15:00 starts

(Please RSVP to [email protected] or +65 6659 7068)

For more information, please visit: http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/exhibitions_en/ianwoo-exhibition-tkgs-2013_en/

Collection

TOMIO KOYAMA GALLERY Singapore is pleased to announce an exhibition of the gallery's collection. The exhibition presents a line up featuring various representations of characters by Atsushi Fukui, Hideaki Kawashima, Naoki Koide, Mika Ninagawa, Jon Pylypchuk and Shooshie Sulaiman.

For more information about each artist, please access to the following webpages.

- Atsushi Fukui: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/fukui_en/

- Hideaki Kawashima: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/kawashima_en/

- Naoki Koide: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/koide_en/

- Mika Ninagawa: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/ninagawa_en/

- Jon Pylypchuk: www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/pylypchuk_en/

- Shooshie Sulaiman: shooshiesulaiman.net/

"Satoko Nachi: About Him"

Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore is pleased to present "About Him" by Japanese artist Satoko Nachi. This will be the artist's first solo exhibition in Singapore, featuring 5 new artworks.

Satoko Nachi was born in Tokyo in 1982. The artist's friends as well as the artist herself are often depicted in Nachi's works. Across the canvas, she paints things thought about darkly, deeply, contents based on unrequited love, or the way she longed for things to be, things that actually happened to the artist herself, or stories heard from friends. It could be an episode with the artist's beloved, or personal advice sought by a friend, but the personal details fade away as these things are repeatedly thought over, kneaded upon, and something similar to its essence comes forth. This alone is left behind, giving the work its strength. Her distinctive, delicate touch and symbolic details leave a strong impression on the viewer. In addition, many of Nachi's paintings are large-scale; for example, Happiness and Despair, shown at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, is 11 meters in length. "It envelops the viewer, who I would like to see nothing but my painted world," Nachi says.

Artist reception: September 6, fri., 19:00~

For more images and information of the artist, please visit:  http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/artists_en/nachi_en/

Sulaiman itu Melayu (Sulaiman was Malay) by Shooshie Sulaiman

For her first solo presentation, Shooshie Sulaiman poignantly reflects on notions of identity. Referencing her late father, Sulaiman itu Melayu explores how distinctly 'Southeast Asian' and 'Malay' cultures are constructed and perceived, through drawing, collage and site-specific installations. By activating and deconstructing the processes through which cultural categories are formed, the works in the exhibition not only challenge the idea of inherent identities, but the artist's own assumptions about her personal history. Characteristic of her open-ended approach, Sulaiman itu Melayu aligns the complexities of life with those of art - as one, holistic quandary.

For the exhibition, Shooshie has combined soil from her father’s grave and the ash remains of her drawings and Rumah (2002-8), her former studio and situation piece. In this work, Shooshie repositions the acts of post-production related to Rumah (it was last shown as part of Rumah Sulaiman di belakang Kedai Ah Guat at the Singapore Biennale in 2011) to a kind of ‘post-process’, overlapping values of the subject and the body within the same material. 

Specially conceived for Tomio Koyama Gallery, Singapore, Sulaiman bought a home is a replica of the house that her father first bought for his family. Etched with texts in Jawi from Surah Al-Fatihah, the passage from the Qur’an that is recited when somebody passes away, Sulaiman bought a home evokes the Malay Muslim family home as a site of peace and calm. Sulaiman was a rubber tapper comprises sheets made from milk extracted from the surviving rubber trees of Shooshie’s family home in Segamat, Johor, Malaysia. Through these works, she explores the relationship between humans and nature, performing ‘rituals of detachment’ from her father.

Other works featured include Shooshie’s studies on Malaysian currency notes that date from the Japanese Occupation (1941-45) and collaged envelopes layered with images of Malays from the past. Containing subtle manipulations and interventions, these studies highlight their materials’ latent energies and issues in the making of cultural perception.

As part of her presentation at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Singapore, Shooshie will be opening 12 Residence, a guesthouse in Malacca that invites residents to experience art in incidental and unexpected ways.

Artist Biography

Shooshie Sulaiman was born in 1973, Muar, Malaysia. Often drawing on her experience, emotions and memories, she makes works and situations that create highly nuanced and personal interactions with their subjects and audiences. After receiving her BA in Fine Art from the MARA University of Technology (UiTM) in 1996, she received the National Art Gallery of Malaysia’s prestigious Young Contemporaries Award, and has participated in numerous exhibitions and residencies in Malaysia and internationally. Previous group exhibitions include ‘Open House’, Singapore Biennale (2011), Asia-Pacific Triennial (2009-10), Documenta 12 (2007), Continuities: Contemporary Art of Malaysia At The Turn of The 21st Century, Guangdong Museum of Art and the Florence Biennale (2003). She currently lives and works in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where she also runs 12, an exhibition and project space.

Artist Talk

October 26, Saturday, 15:00 – 16:00

For more information about the artist, please visit: http://www.tomiokoyamagallery.com/exhibitions_en/shooshiesulaiman-exhibition-tkgs-2013_en/

Nana Funo: The Fish Glitters As Its Scales Tremble

＊Closed for Chinese New Year: January 30, Thurs - February 3, Mon.

Nana Funo's paintings are richly filled with motifs of decorative patterns, animals and plants, figures, landscapes and written characters. They are composed with various techniques, graceful drawings of acrylic, repetitive overlaying of gesso or dye, patterns that come into appearance from masking, and the visual effect that embraces richness in layers arouse a curiosity to explore what is illustrated deep inside the paintings. Textures similar to porcelain, textile or sometimes relief can be observed in the works.