木原幸志郎個展”Scene”

ARTDYNE is pleased to present Koshiro Kihara’s solo exhibition ‘Scene’ from 13 Jan (Sat) to 4 Feb (Sun), 2024.

Koshiro Kihara was born in 1997 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, and completed his postgraduate studies in Fine Arts at Onomichi City University in 2022. He currently works with his twin brother Kenshiro Kihara in their joint studio in Hyogo.

Kihara consistently attempts to create a world where opposites intersect, such as ‘figurative’ vs. ‘abstract’, ‘fact’ vs. ‘fiction’, ‘moment’ vs. ‘eternity’, and pursues a new framework for painting. The works follow a production process in which the artist meticulously creates his own motifs out of clay and other materials, and uses carefully photographed images as the basis for oil paintings. The two-dimensional images created by the act of photographing sharpen the gap between what people normally see and what is expressed through the camera machine, with its misalignments, blurring and rough particles. By drawing from these photographed images, the figuration of the subject motif and the materialisation and abstraction of colour are developed on the same screen.

In contrast to her previous works with a certain ‘gravity’, the motifs in her new solo exhibition ‘Scene’ are painted with a transparency like cellophane paper and dance lightly on the screen. Just as Brancusi and other post-modern sculptors have attempted to break free from gravity, the exhibition space is expected to create a new relationship with ‘gravity’ in painting.

Twelve new works by Koshiro Kihara will be on display and for sale at this exhibition. We hope that you will take this opportunity to view and appreciate them. Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Artist statement

The works in this exhibition are based on the motif of cellophane and paint itself, which he paints with oil paint. While painting in this way, there were many moments when I felt a strange sensation. What is it that I am painting? Am I painting realistically on cellophane, or am I simply painting colours on canvas? Is it painted paint or just oil paint placed on the canvas? All that appears on the screen is a coloured surface, and it is as if the artist is painting colour on colour. My own vision and thoughts gradually intermingled, and it seemed that what I was facing was either figurative or abstract, the two gradually melting together and becoming ambiguous.

This solo exhibition was an attempt to experiment with this kind of vision and thought on canvas. Through these works, I am able to look at the beauty of ordinary phenomena and the natural order of things that we usually overlook.

Koshiro Kihara