Akira Yanagisawa received his Ph.D. from Graduate School of Arts at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2011. We held a large-scale solo exhibition of Yanagisawa at ARTCOURT Gallery upon his completion of Ph.D. course and promoted his work in a solo exhibition format at ART HK, the internationally acclaimed art fair in Hong Kong. Yanagisawa earned favorable reputation domestically as well as internationally. ARTCOURT Gallery is excited to present Yanagisawa’s first solo exhibition in almost three years to showcase the accumulation of his daily work after returning to Gunma Prefecture in 2012 where he was originally from.
Yanagisawa questioned painting as “self-expression” and the self- reliance of “drawing”. He began deconstructing the direct act of drawing and the painting as a trace of such action, then tried to pave a new domain in the medium known as painting by constructing a production method that is, although semi-automatic, a similar system to the developmental process of life.
Yanagisawa had developed his world of abstract painting which was the accumulation of lines or polyhedrons in his unique process of applying computer-generated images on to an inorganic painting surface by using stencils. In recent years, however, he began having interest in the process of recognition in which the act of “seeing” turns abstract shapes into concrete images and meanings, and he began to work on compositions that are more specific by interposing certain rules when selecting what images to add on. The trace of hand and intentional materials are removed carefully as previously done. On the other hand, by adopting a new method, Yanagisawa has accomplished the unique material sense that is beyond the control of artist himself in his most recent works.

I generate accidental images by applying modification to geometric forms repeatedly by using computer, then I fix those images onto canvas with paint by using stencils. Paintings completed with this method have geometric shapes and organic shapes, concrete shapes and abstract shapes, solid colors, spotted colors and textures all coexist. Things appeared complicated are in fact made from simple repeated transformations, and things appears simple might reveal something complicated. I’d like to create works that have the way of life hidden within by the mix and fluidization of those that conflict. This is also an experiment to provoke gratification and question to painting whether the works of art are made by artist or being generated by other factors, the viewer is looking or being made to look. — Akira Yanagisawa

Yanagisawa had produced paintings in which surface were composed of clashes of intentional and unintentional, abstractness and concreteness, mechanical smoothness and physical fluctuation. His recent attempts explore new painting expressions as if to infiltrate these bipolar elements and to fuse the simple dichotomy while touching the issues on visual recognition.
This exhibition will focus on the most recent works showcasing his newest approach. The works with their motifs being tree, bird and people, and distant-view-landscape paintings will be scattered throughout the exhibition space. On top of this multi-view images of distant/close up and bird/people, the walls will be decorated to expand the paintings beyond their framed area and to make the entire space the installation as a “forest”. We will hold a simultaneous solo exhibition of Tsuyoshi Higashijima. Please visit us to experience the performance of painting expressions coming from the two different approaches.