Text Li Bowen

The exhibition is the first solo exhibition in Japan in three years and features 18 new works

A solo exhibition by New York-based artist Hiroya Kurata will start at Gallery The Mass in Harajuku, from 27 August until 25 September.

Kurata's work, which consistently overflows with sensitivity and humour while changing style without having fixed environments or concepts, always seeks the inner beauty opposite to mass media and mainstream culture.

Kurata has been spending more and more time with his family in nature since the pandemic, and has developed a new style using his own photography work as the basis for his drawings, which differs from his previous style of freehand drawing.

Many of the works look drawn with vivid watercolors or crayons but are actually painted with a delicate oil painting touch.

The exhibition entitled 'Summer Hours' continues to reflect Kurata's sensory perception of the artist’s everyday life with his family in the work. Literally, the elements in the exhibited works showcase children playing in the bright sunlight and in the shade of trees, also the surface of the water reflects the summer landscape. By simplifying the characters’ expressions on their faces, the work evokes impressions and humour that cannot be described in words.

［INFORMATION］

Hiroya Kurata
'Summer Hours’
Dates: 27 August - 25 September 2022
Opening hours: 12:00 - 19:00 (Closed on Monday and Tuesday)

［CONTACT］

+81-3-3406-0188
info@themass.jp
http://themass.jp/
5-11-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku Tokyo 150-0001