Gaku Azuma is active as an art director who produces a lot of promotional art, meanwhile he is also a painter of "Bokuga, ink painting". Azuma's works, which depict a woman with ink on Japanese paper, are being drawn in clean lines and characterized by the fact that it does not have the "blurring" that is usually found in traditional ink paintings. All the elements, such as the black hair of women, the roundness of soft skin, the expressions of flowers and creatures drawn as kimono patterns, are expressed only by the lines drawn by the extremely thin brush tip. The contrast is expressed by the shades that are consisted of countless thin lines. Although ink is the only color that is being applied to his work, he shows a vivid sense of color, which make the viewer sensually feel the touching and even the smell of the women in the painting.
Toru Ishii humorously depicts modern society with Yuzen dyeing, a traditional Japanese technique, and is also known as the "contemporary uiyo-e artist." The works to be exhibited in this exhibition are based on the motif of "Looking Back Beauty" by Moronobu Hishikawa, an ukiyo-e artist in the early Edo period. Ishii applied Hishikawa's analog approach of paper and ink to the drawing of the latest fashion. Ishii collaged the images of fashion magazines on the Internet and dyed them using digital techniques. The lines used by Ishii are the warp and weft lines of the cloth, which is the material of the work. These lines also mean time axis for him.
Mayu Kunihisa is the only female artist in this exhibition. She uses her body as the axis, the stroke of her arms and centrifugal force to draw and create with the circle of her body. Kunihisa attaches great importance to experience and physicality in her creative activities, and believes that the circles she draws with her own body are changing from moment to moment depending on her own experience. In other words, changes are recognized in lines and works after she experiencing many things, such as visiting various places. New circles are created after the body has experienced something new. The repeatly drawn circles become one unit and finally create a work. In this exhibition, we will introduce the latest works that are produced within this year, including the "wit-wit" series, which emphasizes the physicality of women.
Gaku Azuma
Born in Kyoto in 1963. Being the son of Shoso Azuma, a fan painter, Gaku Azuma has been familiar with paintbrushes since he was a little child. He graduated from Santa Clara High School, California, the U.S. in 1981, and Sozosha College of Design, Osaka, Japan in 1992. Currently he lives and works in Osaka as an art director and a painter. He won the grand prix at San Jose Times Painting Competition in 1978, the grand prix of California State Painting Competition in 1980, and Prize of Osaka Mayer with Tessyu in 2005. His work that won the grand prix in 1980 is being collected by Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Toru Ishii
He was born in 1981 in Shizuoka, Japan. He has got a degree of B.A. Textile Arts from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2006, and M.A. Textile Design from Chelsea College of arts and design in an exchange student program in 2008. He got degree of M.A. Textile Arts in 2010 and Ph.D. Textile Arts in 2014 from the Tokyo University of the Arts. Currently he works and lives in Saitama. He won the Jury Encouragement Award at the 8th Spiral Independent Creators Festival in 2007, David Solo Award at Nomura Foundation Grant, Mitsubishi Corporation Art Gate Program Grant Ise Cultural Foundation Exhibition in 2011, Nomura Art Prize at Doctoral Program Final Exhibition in 2013, and his works are selected into The Annex Collection Acquisition in 2017. His works are being collected in Tokyo University of the Arts Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, the UK), Morikami Museum (Delray Beach, FL, the US).
Mayu Kunihisa
She was born in Osaka in 1983. She graduated from Interior Design Course, Osaka City Craft High School in 1999 and the night course of Osaka Mode GAKUEN College of Pattern Making in 2000. She graduated from Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London in 2003 and the Undergraduate School of Art and Design in Kobe Design University in 2010. After that she graduated from Graduate School of Art and Design, Kobe Design University in 2012 and completed the Course of Graduate School of Art and Design, Kobe Design University in 2015. Currently she is working in Kobe. She won the Jury Prize of Ryoichi Matsuo, Reviewer Prizes of Mugi Nakajima and Yasuhito Mimura at UNKNOWN ASIA in 2017, TIVOLI Award at the 47th Contemporary Art International AU Exhibition and Special Prize at the 22nd Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art in 2018. Her works are being collected in Museo dellʼ altro e dallʼ altrove di Metropoliz (Rome, Italy) and Higashi Osaka City Library (Osaka, Japan).
