8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery is pleased to present “Toru Kuwakubo [2001-2014]”.
Toru Kuwakubo started his artistic practice with a theatrical approach, finding the figure of an imaginary painter within himself as a means to explore contemporary art through the medium of painting. His unique expressions created by a classical technique of layering thick oil paint to depict contemporary imagined sceneries reminiscent of the work of Van Gogh, have received acclaim both internationally and within Japan.
This exhibition will feature his early and the latest works encompassing paintings, drawings and photographs.

Toru Kuwakubo was born in Zama, Kanagawa in 1978. He graduated from the Oil Painting Department at Tama Art University in 2002.
His major solo exhibitions include “World Citizens with the White Boxes” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2008) “Out of Noise” (GALLERY HYUNDAI Gangnam Space, Seoul, Korea, 2010), “Telling of Sea, Telling of Painter” (Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo, 2010), “One Wonderful Day Which Cannot Be Forgotten” (Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore, Singapore, 2014) and “A Calendar for Painters Without Time Sense 1. 3. 4. 5. 7. 8” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2018). His major group exhibitions include “Artist File 2010 : The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art” (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2010), “Azamino Contemporary vol.2 Viewpoints Drawing ＆ Painting” (Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa, 2012), “Site: Place of Memories, Spaces with Potential” (Hiroshima MOCA, Hiroshima, 2013), “Tokyo Painting II | Mindscape between interior and exterior” (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, 2013) and “ROKKO MEETS ART 2016” (Rokkosan Country House, Hyogo, 2016), Kuwakubo won the Tokyo Wonder Wall Award sponsored by Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2002. He also received the Bijutsu Techo Prize and the Tomio Koyama Gallery Prize at GEISAI#5, the 3rd Koji Kinutani Prize by the Mainichi Newspaper in 2011, VOCA Encouragement Prize sponsored by The Ueno Royal Museum in 2012 and the First Prize at the 3rd D-Art Biennale in 2013.
His works are included in numerous public collections including Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Takahashi Collection, The Taguchi Art Collection, The DAI-ICHI LIFE Insurance Company, The JAPIGOZZI Collection.

Please visit the link for more information.
http://tomiokoyamagallery.com/en/artists/toru-kuwakubo/