Kinosho Kikaku is honored to present to you “Portraits of Someone-Tatsuhito Horikoshi Solo Exhibition”.

Born in 1985, Tatsuhito Horikoshi is an emerging artist who bases his creative activity in Tokyo. “I was impressed by Elizabeth Peyton’s portraits of rock singers and movie stars, thus began to draw paintings of whom I admire” said Horikoshi. However, he draws no reference from the reality, and creates all the characters based on his own imagination. The delicate use of light colors and deliberate attempt of bedimming the details grant a touch of abstractness to the work, endowing a sense of uncertain ubiquity that leaves us a blur imagination of an unknown stranger.

The cute and enduring characters portrayed in his works are two dimensional with obvious traces of Japanese subculture. Though he grew up greatly influenced by various kinds of animation and manga, he tries to distinguish himself from its ordinary representation. The carefully selected motif, abstractness indulged pictorial space and bittersweet longing of nostalgia share similarities with New Figurative artists such as Peter Doig and Elizabeth Peyton, and at the same time distinctive from the animeinspired works of Murakami Takashi and other similar artists.

The immense expansion of the internet nowadays is constantly refreshing the definition of art and expanding its limitation. New art forms are created with the help of modern technology. In the midst of such ever-changing world of art, Horikoshi still dedicates himself to portrait painting. Through his works, we hope to reemphasize the universality and importance of portrait painting.

In this very exhibition, we are featuring a number of Horikoshi’s signature character portraits, adding in a flavor of spring with motifs of flowers and greens. We truly hope you can enjoy it.

Kinosho Kikaku is delighted to present to you Sugioka Minami’s very first solo exhibition “まぶたのきみ～A Tender Reflection”, exhibiting works that figuratively reveal the complex relationship of “Me and You”.

Sugioka’s works were inspired from the physical sensations that she experienced when she dived into the sea. “When I was surrounded by the sea, I can strongly feel the limitation of my body,” she said, “it is a complicated feeling of wanting to become one with the sea and an overwhelming sense of alienation.” No matter how desperately we eager to become one with the sea and attempt to dive deeper, the human body will always remind us that there is a limitation. The keen awareness of her physical sensations has ultimately become the main theme of her works.

Such complex relationship of “me and the sea” is in fact similar to the relationship of human beings. No matter how anxiously we try to approach one another, we will always feel our border as different individuals. However, our longing for one another will only grow stronger. Such desire of coexistence and the sense of separation will continue to live within us as we walk pass everyday life.

It will be our pleasure if you can enjoy Sugioka’s works which strive to explore the consciousness of “longing for others” while reflecting the artist’s unique point of view towards the world.