To kick off the new year, Corey Helford Gallery opened a solo show of new works from the ever popular and innovative, Kazuki Takamatsu. The Japanese artist has returned to the gallery for his fifth solo show, entitled Your Wings, being hosted in the Main Gallery through February 20, 2021.
“I wanted to make the exhibition hopeful, not just black and white," Takamatsu says. "After living a full year of self-restraint, due to COVID-19, feelings such as wanting to see my friends and go on trips became stronger and stronger. Suddenly, I thought I could go anywhere with wings. So, these new works show my honest feelings."
Takamatsu’s haunting black and white imagery explores narratives of death and society, through a unique depth-mapping technique that he developed, in which classic mediums such as drawing, airbrush and gouache painting are combined with computer graphics. Within this new body of work, Takamatsu reflects on the conflict between personal freedom and the restraints of living within a larger societal group. Your Wings will be introducing fourteen of the artist’s signature mixed media pieces, plus feature two new rainbow-colored series: It is Time to Release (a Piece of the Rainbow) and Thoughts on Freedom.
This show also features two series that combine hand-painted and silk-screened works. The larger series, entitled It is Time to Release (a Piece of the Rainbow), consists of six colors (plus white) and the pieces portray the moment when the rain stops and a rainbow appears. In the show’s smaller series, entitled Thoughts on Freedom, the rainbow is expressed in six colors in the U.S. and seven colors in Japan. The number of colors that express a rainbow varies from country to country and it’s generally expressed anywhere from two to eight colors. The reason why I chose nine colors, one more than usual, is because I want more people around the world to see the rainbow.”
