PAST EXHIBITION

Kentaro Shimoyama solo exhibition
"Feel at Home"

Open

2024/8/23 (Friday) – 9/15(Sunday)
13:00-19:00
Wednesday – Saturday, last Sunday
Free admission / Open by appointment outside the above hours.

CALM & PUNK GALLERY is pleased to announce Kentaro Shimoyama’s solo exhibition, “Feel at Home”, from 23 August to 15 September 2024.

Kentaro Shimoyama paints abstract landscapes with overlapping layers of time and memory, as well as landscapes that evoke the presence of people.

After his master’s degree, he began a series of radical experiments in which he removed the canvas from its wooden frame. This step emphasized the thinness and lightness of the paintings, and the walls and spaces to which the canvases were attached also became part of the work. His exploration of the potential for these external factors to change the way in which the painting appears is continuing as a theme in his work today.

Since then, his consciousness has been focused on the concept of ‘thinness’, and he has faced several key elements in his paintings. A frame has the function of a boundary with the outside world, but by removing it, the wind flows into the painting, mixing it with the outside world and surrounding it with elements of a different dimension. 
He paints a window frame inside the constructed element of the painting’s canvas, and within it he draws a story. Without the audience being aware of it, they are attracted to the story within the window frame. His attempt to build a pseudo-architecture of window frames within a fragile structure highlights the aesthetic of the painting.

This time, Shimoyama has attached the paintings inside a steel frame. The frame does not just eliminate external factors, but looks like a cookie-cutter shaped cut out of the wall. Previously, he perceived the change of the work in its environment as just deterioration, but by attaching a frame, he now realizes that it is possible to hold the time passage as part of the work.

In this exhibition, new framed works are lined up as the main part of the exhibition.
By folding, stacking, curling up and moving, this exhibition questions the nature of paintings that encompass multiple moments in time.
We hope you come and see his first major solo exhibition.

The title of this exhibition, The Subject is the Object, and the Object is the Subject, expresses the intention to create a synergy between what is observed and what is abstract. Curated by using distinctive sequencing and a limited, uniform color palette, each artwork works individually, and pairs with a corresponding piece from the other part of the collection. In this way, each piece and each pair will create surprising responses and build connections, both via the understanding of form and function, and through the visual communication of thought.

Adrian Johnson has had a career as an illustrator for over 20 years, contributing many memorable works to the commercial world. This will be his first solo exhibition in Japan as a painter. The exhibition will feature two large-scale pieces and 14 smaller works, focusing on his unique, hand-painted works on canvas. We sincerely hope you will visit and enjoy the exhibition.

Kentaro Shimoyama

1990 Born in Tokyo
Kentaro Shimoyama paints to explore relationships by interfering with space and time, allowing for an organic understanding of the world’s phenomena. Since 2018, he has been running an independent publishing house called “Hammer Publishing.” Starting in 2024, he has been responsible for creating cover art for the literary magazine “Bungakukai.”

HP http://shimoyamakentaro.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sim0ken/