Good condition.
Signature and year on the reverse.
Slight fiber residue on the surface.

Sculptor and art critic Kenjiro Okazaki (b. 1955), currently holding a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, is a leading figure in contemporary Japanese art. He first came into the spotlight in 1981 with his ‘Akasakamitsuke’ series, early works featuring polyethylene-colored forms, which shown in his debut solo exhibition ‘Tatemono no Kimochi’ at Muramatsu Gallery. Okazaki’s artistic practice extends beyond sculpture and painting to include media art, architecture, environmental planning, robotics, and education. He has participated in major international exhibitions, including the Paris Biennale, and continues to gain international recognition.

Around 2005, he began working on his ongoing series ‘Zero Thumbnail’, in which size-0 canvases are paired with suggestive and often whimsical titles that hint at narrative. This series, which comprises one of the largest bodies of paintings in Okazaki’s career, is characterized by the playful movement of multicolored paint, often appearing as if applied with a palette knife, dancing freely across the canvas. The two works featured here are part of this series: the buoyant ‘Dageki wo uketa kuki (tadashii ontei)‘ and the contrasting, darker-toned ‘Dafuto / Aojiroi tentaino me to nagaikami’. ‘Dageki wo uketa kuki (tadashii ontei)‘ was first exhibited in the artist’s 2005 solo exhibition at Yoojin Gallery.

Galleria Finarte, Nagoya