Satoshi Kojima “organized with Tramps”

Satoshi Kojima “organized with Tramps”

Bridget Donahue

This event has ended.

This is the mysterious world of the painter Satoshi Kojima (who should not be confused with the wrestler of the same name even though on occasion there is some crossover.)

One may ask what planet have we been lead to as a painting’s title tells us to say good bye to our earth. Maybe the suspension of disbelief required is disconcerting for some but what is portrayed is not altogether unbelievable or even weird. Why? Satoshi has lived in Düsseldorf for the past fourteen years and his work feels infected by the city’s nocturnal world where an anonymous doorway may lead to anomalous gathering that quickly dissolves at the first break of dawn. A place where it’s quite normal for numbered women in lingerie to strike poses in windows on the approach to Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof on the train from Cologne.

Stations, platforms and ‘rooms’ all become stages for action to take place in Satoshi’s painted world with their images rendered in soft pastel buffed in buttery paint with surfaces so soft that it is often difficult to see a hand at play. The paintings are about feelings - feelings about being away from home whilst questioning the notion of home, about grappling with identity, the parameters of sexuality, depression, mortality. Satoshi, an artist perhaps perpetually displaced, lets his paintings speak where words have failed him.

Media

• Painting

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