Monya Rowe Gallery is excited to announce the first New York solo exhibition by Hiroya Kurata titled Union St. For this exhibition, Kurata presents a series of paintings inspired by childhood memories and family. Evoking characters and scenes from distant memories, found photographs, and his own domestic life, Kurata’s paintings are rich with a vibrancy that brings to mind animation, cartoons and graphic novels. There is a strong sense of movement within the works; the objects, such as cars and bikes, seem to become characters within a fragmented narrative. Kurata’s everyday-imagery embraces fleeting, seemingly overlooked, moments with humor and sentiment. Pushing color and perspective to explore the relationship between subject and landscape, Kurata’s visual language embraces the pictorial possibilities of juxtaposing the real with the imagined.
Hiroya Kurata (b. 1980, Osaka, Japan) received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, NY. His work was recently exhibited in a group exhibition at Hollis Taggart Gallery, NY and a two-person exhibition with Koichi Sato at Ross & Kramer Gallery, East Hampton, NY. His work was also the subject of a twoperson exhibition with Hiro Tsuchiya at Spring Break 2019 with Koki Arts, Tokyo, Japan. This is his first solo exhibition in New York. Kurata lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
