Artist: Yu Nishimura
Exhibition title: Around October
Venue: KAYOKOYUKI, Komagome SOKO, Tokyo, Japan
Date: October 24 – November 29, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, Komagome SOKO, Tokyo
KAYOKOYUKI is pleased to present “Around October,” Yu Nishimura’s first solo exhibition in three years. Nishimura’s solo show will also be held at Crèvecoeur in Paris at the same time.
Using various images of everyday life, close-ups of people, birds, cats, fruits, etc., Yu Nishimura constructs a single painting by intricately superimposing fragments carved in the depths of memory on canvas. When confronted with Nishimura’s paintings, the viewer resonates with the images from Nishimura’s memories and may be awakened to their own unique and secret scenes in their childhood. Nishimura’s paintings, with their delicate colors and uninhibited brushstrokes, are ambiguous yet frank and pure, and they are richly expressive in a way that encourages the viewer to actively interpret them.
In this exhibition, as well as the works drawn with Nishimura’s previous work style, which consisted of transparent colors and layers of outlines, we will be able to see more abstract works with dense colors and clearly defined boundaries. Nishimura’s attitude that “I want to capture the actuality of people and objects by depicting their outer forms by rendering it like silhouettes” is more clearly reflected in this development. He also aims to express “time that is not perceived” and “multiple different times” in a single space in this exhibition. Whatever the motifs that appear in the works, be they people, cats, birds, insects, cars, boats, or soccer balls, each has its own subjective time that exists and coexists with them. Times that we can clearly understand, times that we can vaguely perceive, and even times that we have never imagined are depicted in Nishimura’s works while remaining ambiguous.
Nishimura says that October, which is the title of the exhibition “Around October,” is “a season of change and instability” and that it is the most “fitting” season for him. It is neither hot nor cold, or it can be hot and cold. “Around October” is such an ambiguous season, and because of its imperfection, it allows us to imagine something that is not explicitly stated.
Yu Nishimura was born in 1982 in Kanagawa, Japan.
Recently, he presented his work in his solo show “Around October” at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2020, solo show “scene of beholder” at Galerie Crevecoeur, Paris, 2020, “VOCA 2019” at The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2019, “ACT Vol. 1 –First Lingering Mist of Spring” at Tokyo Arts and Space (TOKAS) Hongo, Tokyo, 2019, solo show “Aperto 09 Nishimura Yu -paragraph” at Kanazawa 21st Century Museum, Kanazawa, 2018, “Azamino Contemporary vol.9” at Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa, 2018, “CONDO Shanghai” at Gallery Vacancy, 2018, “Contemporary Art of The 21st Century, Exhibition of Taguchi Art Collection” at The Hiratsuka museum of art, Kanagawa, 2018, “Natsu no Tobira, Organized by Misako and Jeffrey Rosen” at SHANE CAMPBELL GALLERY, Chicago, US, 2017, “FACE 2016: FACE Award Winners -The Way of Paintings 2016″ at Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2016, solo show “project N 61” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2015. Nishimura won “the Koji Kinutani Prize 2017” and “Shell Art Award 2013 -Kenjiro Hosaka’s prize” and “Excellent Work Award, FACE 2014” and “Best Prize, The 6th Kiyosu City Haruhi Painting Triennale 2009”.
