Katsutoshi Yuasa "Miraculous"

Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery

poster for Katsutoshi Yuasa "Miraculous"

This event has ended.

ISE Cultural Foundation presents solo exhibition "Katsutoshi Yuasa: Miraculous", curated by Diana Ewer.

His first one-man show in a New York based arts institution, Yuasa exhibits a new series of woodcuts made in the aftermath of Japan's devastating earthquake in March 2011. Abroad at the time, the Internet became a vital source of information through which the artist was able to piece together a narrative of events, and relate to the suffering that his fellow countrymen were experiencing first hand.

Katsutoshi Yuasa: Miraculous is, in part, based on images of natural disasters culled from the Internet, translated by the artist into hauntingly permanent post-apocalyptic woodcuts on an epic scale: the largest measures 8 by 10 ft. Meticulously hand-crafted, these works echo the pixelated raster-graphic structure of digital images lifted from the web, yet Yuasa carefully edits and filters his material. The artist comments that "we cannot see everything and cannot experience anything" and his woodcuts are the end result of a long spiritual and creative journey through which he hopes to crystallize the emotive character of his subjects' inner world.

Each woodcut takes weeks to complete, as Yuasa painstakingly translates details of light and shadow onto plywood ready for printing, allowing the works to metamorphose through his process. The finished woodcuts exist as objects and images in their own right, removed from the original narratives that inspired them, but still communicating an abstract appeal of dramatic proportions. Yuasa sees this transformation as an act of purification. The changes he makes to the images are a means of grasping a higher truth or meaning – something miraculous – surpassing the realities that inspired him.

[Image: Katsutoshi Yuasa “Pseudo Mythology #3” (2011) oil based woodcut with pigment on paper, 95.6 x 192.1 in.]

Media

Schedule

from November 09, 2012 to January 04, 2013
Artist and Curator In Conversation: Saturday, November 10, 2012, 12– 2pm

Opening Reception on 2012-11-09 from 18:00 to 20:00

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