Base Gallery is pleased to present "United colors" a solo exhibition of new works by Shinya Sakurai.

After majoring in dyeing at Osaka University of Arts, Sakurai had started making flat surface artworks and continuously worked on them along with what he learned and acquired while being at the university. A part of his unique expression can be seen in the support medium with dyed cotton cloth on and the velvet with a quantity of pigments and vinyl resin paints lapped over. What he does seems to go beyond just the drawing and painting. It is rather precise to consider it as sinking above mentioned materials into the support mediums voluptuously.

Since enrolling in Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti di Torino in 2004, he has been living in Torino, and he has been asked and queried about Hiroshima where he is originally from every now and then. Though never being really conscious about Hiroshima before, the experience of repeatedly being asked and queried about it brought him a momentum to have another look at his own expression as an artist since he felt a mound of misperception and disconnect there. Then, asking himself by using the denotations of common factors has become the core of his expression. Heart mark is one of them.

While having shown the artworks with familiar denotations or symbols and done a number of exhibitions at various places in Europa, he has come to realize each place has its own Hiroshima. For the new works at this exhibition, Sakurai uses something Italian as denotations such as catholic cross and medaille or button in mode. As he adopts the denotations that are familiar with the unquestioned daily life, diversified but unique forms of catholic and mode emerge in respective viewers.

What he studied at the university and his home town Hiroshima started to function as the momentum to think over himself after choosing Italy as the place to live and work. However, regardless of these queries and verifications, each artwork has erotic glaze and overlaps of weighty colors. They create an illusion as if each one of them is a certain part of his own flesh and blood and gives off an odor of his body.

The artist stated: "After moving to Italy by myself, I began to live on my own based in Torino. What I had felt peculiar since then was disconnect or what I would say the gap between the European image of Japan and their cognition for Hiroshima the town I was born in and those of mine. They were what I had never been really aware of when I lived in Japan, and I could not help but feel that the viewpoints from inside and outside would make such a difference in terms of perception.

To make these gaps the objective of my expression has become the principal core as an artist, and I went on to adopt the heart mark that represents love and peace as the universal denotation. That is because I thought that people throughout the world have their own images
of Hiroshima for each, and I desired to make artworks as the momentum to think over what’s behind the images once again.

Such thoughts have gradually led me to feel the gap of the images of Italy as the one who sees this country from outside after living there for a long time. In order to question the gap once again, I carved the common Italian denotations such as catholic cross, medal of Madonna or button as the icon of Italian mode on my artworks. The viewers would develop varied feelings from what I made, and their own respective images of catholic and Italian mode would calmly emerge.

Living and working in a foreign country for many years has provided me with the momentum to run back my origin and background. The artworks produced under such environment might perhaps signify my own self as if they can be mistaken as a part of my body."
February 2013, Shinya Sakurai

Base Gallery
103-0025
Koura Daiichi Bldg.1F 1-1-6
Nihombashi Kayabacho Chuo-ku Tokyo
Tel: +81(0)3-5623-6655
info@basegallery.com
www.basegallery.com

Gallery Hours
From Monday to Saturday
From 11.00 am until 7.00 pm