Introduction
A utopian world, always filled with a certain tranquility, stretches across Fukui’s painted works. At one time it is painted as abstract rectangle, another time as a motif spinning an extremely concrete story. What we consistently must be conscious of, however, is where the artist places his viewpoint; In other words, the sense of distance between Atsushi Fukui, the artist, and this world.
His painted images are rich with suggestion, and we soon sense what that is. Like the girl lying in the forest, mushroom silhouettes, the other entrance inside the room. But if we try to discover some meaning there, we are unable to step further into the work. Works of various elements resonate with each other, and the universe of a single magnificent thought unfolds, from the early works in which a foreign space opens inside an everyday scene, to the fragmented still photograph-like series staged in a mysterious forest, further develops upon a science fiction-like world view in the series of his previous solo exhibition, in which messengers from another world, having landed on earth in the ancient past, fondly remind one of deja vue.
In his painted world there is an indescribable isolation in never being able to reach the real world, and simultaneously, a piercing gaze that refuses to run away from it, looking across the expanse of the world, a freedom transcending time and space lives freshly.
Concept
The same landscapes previously painted by the artist reappear in these new paintings. It is just like the experience of repeatedly encountering the same scene in a dream. In addition, drawings of mysterious stories divided into frames, similar to bande dessinee, will be exhibited. Please enjoy the show.
Artist Biography
Atsushi Fukui was born in 1966, in Aichi prefecture. In 1989, he completed his B.A. in oil painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. He is currently based in Tokyo.
At the Tomio Koyama Gallery, he participated the 2001 group show “morning glory,” curated by Yoshitomo Nara, after which he held solo exhibitions, such as the 2002 “bedroom paintings”, 2004 “teenage ghosts (and other scary stories)”, and 2006 “the eyes of the midnight sun.”
This exhibition, his first in three years, will be his fourth solo show. Other major group exhibitions include “convolvulus: Atsushi Fukui / Hideaki Kawashima” (2009, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei), “The Masked Portrait” (2008, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York), “ROPPONGI CROSSING” (2004, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo), “VOCA 2003 – The Vision of Contemporary Art – New Flat Artists” (2003, the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo), “New Generation Japanese Painters” (2003, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima), and others.
