Base Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by Rikuji Makabe.

Makabe first absorbs the landscape that enfolds us into himself and reconstructs it after thorough appreciation. He first moves his point of view in midair and places it in what is called higher perspective. In works painted with bird’s-eye view, details of the world are all left out, and human figures, trees and woods are replaced with certain symbols and patterns which are being used repeatedly, and then he makes his own paintings using his memories and imaginary landscape to resemble the joint of trees. Originally, landscape opens out before us being interrupted and inhibited by houses and clump of trees, and every now and then the landscape Makabe depicts comes with this sort of segmented rhythm. It is obvious the point of view he applies and joint in his works derive from Japanese traditional painting. He steadily depicts the surrounding landscape applying all sorts of those bequests and reveals the new place where we stand. That is to say he depicts his own imagined landscape “jo-kei” which the new place would find out by newly translating the surrounding landscape. It must be true that each one of us writes and depicts our own “jo-kei” in ourself.

In 2016, he will work on site-specific paintings for Art Setouchi in Honjima. In the slow-moving time and space in this island, you’d happen to see the new “jo-kei”.