Akira Ikezoe “Coconut Heads”

Brennan & Griffin

[Image: Akira Ikezoe "Coconut Heads in New Museum" (2017) Oil on canvas 50 x 50 in.]

This event has ended.

Brennan & Griffin presents Coconut Heads, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Akira Ikezoe.

Born and raised in rural Kochi, Japan, Ikezoe currently resides in New York City. His paintings reflect the experience of navigating cultural differences between conceptions of what is commonly perceived as “East” and “West”. Ikezoe’s paintings depict figures which are interwoven in situations or vignettes connected by a continuous line that traverses the surface of the canvas. These figures become characters in the paintings - which he identifies as coconut heads - reflecting themes of inferiority and superiority, cultural misconceptions and socio-economic power imbalances. Ikezoe perceives these themes as elements of his relationship to his adopted residence of New York City.

For his first exhibition with Brennan & Griffin, Ikezoe has made a series of works featuring selections from the collections of prominent New York museums as mise en scene with his figures, creating new narratives within each painting. The illustrated museum works are stripped of context and presented simply as visual information, reducing the power of the idealized origination of the works within the museum setting and creating something autonomous, akin to a word association effect.

Akira Ikezoe was born in Kochi, Japan and received his BA from the Tama Art University in Tokyo, Japan. Recent solo exhibitions include Frieze Art Fair, NY with Proyectos Ultravioleta, Figurativismo at ARTBO, Bogota, Colombia with Proyectos Ultravioleta, el fin del este coincide con el fin del sur, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, Guatemala, and Drawing at Ise Cultural Foundation, NY. Recent group exhibitions include The World Without Us, Brennan & Griffin, NY, A Scream Runs Through The House, Helena Anrather, NY Irremediablemente Cotidiano, Diablo Rosso, Panama City, Panama and Untwining Noise, To See, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NY. He currently lives and works in New York.