Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz is pleased to present the two-person exhibition by Nato Sirbiladze from Gallery Artbeat in Georgia, and Masahiko Kuwahara, as part of the “Onsen Confidential” project.
【Nato Sirbiladze】
Born in Tbilisi in 1955, Georgia and after finishing school she continued to study in the Pedagogic Institute to become a teacher. In different periods she worked at the National Library, at the Institute of Management, and as a school teacher. Sirbiladze never studied art and started painting at the age of 31. Her artworks are made on paper and several hundreds of them are painted in gouache and aquarelle. Sirbiladze is an artist who has never been part of any artistic schools or groups. She has also rarely been mentioned in the narratives of the local artistic context and has continued her creative path independently. Until recently her representation in public spaces has been limited to a few occasions locally and abroad.
Selected solo and group exhibitions:
2023 – Art-O-Rama Art Fair, Marseille, France; ‘Luminous Echoes’, solo exhibition, Gallery Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2022 – ARCO Lisboa Art Fair, Lisbon, Portugal; ‘Ancient Memory Pictures’, solo exhibition, Georgian Museum of Fine Arts, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2020 – ‘Nine Lipped Goddess’, group exhibition, Artbeat, Tbilisi, Georgia; 2015 – Project of Maya Ghogheliani ‘Days with Me’; 2014-2015 – group exhibition, Folk Center; 2013 – The Literature Museum; 2000-2007 – National Library of Parliament of Georgia; 1995-2004 – Gallery Graph Heidelberg.
https://galleryartbeat.com/en/artist/23/nato-sirbiladze
If you are interested in Nato Sirbiladze’s work, please contact the person in charge below.
[Gallery Artbeat] Salome Vakhania salome@projectartbeat.com
【Masahiko Kuwahara】
Born in Tokyo in 1959, and passed away in April 2021. Kuwahara started exhibiting his work in the 1980s. He consistently expressed a sense of absurdity with regard to scenery and humanity being changed by modernization. Inorganic buildings and sceneries created by Japan’s economic prosperity during the 1960s and 70s, dolls and toys that were consumed and abandoned to anonymity, and uncanny creatures living by polluted water, are the primary scenery in which Kuwahara himself grew up. He depicted their sadness in light and humorous ways, assimilated with pale color tones and blurred outlines, suggesting our contemporary feelings of fleeting emptiness, dullness, and loneliness, yet also enabling us to sense a mysterious kind of happiness.
He held twelve solo exhibitions with Tomio Koyama Gallery: “Abandoned Child” (1997), “View” (1999), “Life and Pus” (2001), “Land Development” (2005), “In the End of Summer” (2007), “Window” (2008), “Sweet and Desserts” (2010), “Only in Dream” (2012), “Bright Days” (2015), “Summer Days” (2019) and “heavenly peach” (2021). He also held two solo exhibitions at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, the United States, in 2001 and 2008.
His major group exhibitions include “TOKYO POP” (Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, 1996), “The Japanese Experience – Inevitable” (Ursula Blickle Stiftung Foundation, Kraichtal, Germany, 2002; traveled to Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria in 2004), “POPjack: Warhol to Murakami” (Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, 2002), “Japan Pop” (Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki, 2005), “Portrait Session” (NADiff, Tokyo / Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, 2007) and “Pathos and Small Narratives” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea, 2011).
【About Onsen Confidential】
Onsen Confidential is a hybrid citywide gallery share and natural hot spring retreat / conference.
The project is meant to bring together like-minded gallerists in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation and to provide a friendly introduction to the unique context of the contemporary art world of Tokyo.
Onsen Confidential was inspired by precedents such as the Milwaukee International, Paramount Ranch, Condo, OKEY DOKEY, Friend of a Friend, the Villa Projects (Villa Warsaw, Villa Reykjavik and Villa Toronto), non-profit initiatives such as NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance) and Paris Internationale and gallery organizations such as CADAN (Contemporary Art Dealers Association Nippon) and the ICA (International Galleries Alliance).
