Shinpei Kusanagi

A major part of Shinpei Kusanagi’s early work was comprised of drawings on paper and work on wooden panel executed in a variety of media. In recent years, he has primarily worked with acrylic and colored pencil on canvas and has focused on painting. The works of Kusanagi might prompt in the viewer somehow a feeling of recollection; they do not present a static image, but are rather visually complex. He captures landscapes by incorporating the element of chance that is introduced through the staining method. The figures, forms, architectural elements, and space, which are constituted by layers of overlapping imagery that exist between abstraction and representation, remain active on the picture plane with their seemingly melting colors. They connect with something inside viewers to evoke various landscapes, much as the way in which music does in its listeners.

Kusanagi’s solo exhibitions include Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco, Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, and Taka Ishii Gallery Tokyo. His work was featured in group exhibitions at The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, and Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago. He has also provided images for numerous book covers. In 2013, Kyuryudo published Kiyosumi kaiwai, a book of Kusanagi’s images and texts.

Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery