While I am touching the sleeping cat, I feel as if I know you were there

Apr 18 — Jun 1, 2024

Presented by MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY Past

©️Atsushi Kaga　眠っている猫に触っているとあなたがそこにいるのがわかるような気がするのです。 2024年　キャンバスにアクリル、イミテーションの金箔　180 x 130cm, 6panels（部分）

MAHO KUBOTA GALLERY will be holding a third solo exhibition of works by Atsushi Kaga from April 18 to June 1, 2024.

The exhibition consists of a series of six paintings on canvas arranged around a square framework of natural wooden pillars and a floor of tatami mats. Unlike Kaga’s previous solo exhibitions, the paintings will not be displayed individually on the gallery walls, since the artist has designed them to be assembled as components of an interior space to create a distinct pictorial world. Kaga says that this installation-like concept was inspired by Ito Jakuchu’s wall painting Grapes and Small Birds, which is on permanent display in the Shokoku-ji Jotenkaku Museum in Kyoto. Covering a single wall that incorporates staggered shelves and an alcove, Jakuchu’s painting looks almost like an installation artwork. It was this aspect that caught Kaga’s eye, and when planning this exhibition, he arranged his canvases similarly, as architectural elements. He also took into account that such wall paintings or screens would have originally been viewed from a lower eye level, and has adjusted the accent and position of the elements in these six new works to give them a lower center of gravity than typical Western paintings.