NYAB Event - Atsushi Ohashi “Waiting for the L Train”

Atsushi Ohashi “Waiting for the L Train”

Tenri Cultural Institute

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Atsushi Ohashi is always looking for the moment when different types of people or objects gather together and are united through emotion. He observes such moments and finds happiness that leaves an impression on him. His work focuses on life and his appreciation of diverse existences. In his paintings of New York City subways, you will see people on platforms of subway stations bathed in a spotlight of intense, bright colors juxtaposed against a gray back ground, waiting in anticipation or watching with disappointment as a train comes or passes them by.

“I consider this kind of very simple feeling of missing or meeting an expectation to be universally felt by all,” he says. In this way, it binds together the countless unique values of the city and its people. Through his work, he hopes to illustrate how purity and beauty often comes from the simple and ordinary.

Atsushi Ohashi started his career as an artist in 1982 as a sculptor with his first solo exhibition in Tokyo, influenced by conceptual minimalism. He gradually shifted his artistic and philosophical interests to two-dimensional media and figurative paintings. His work has emphasized traditional oil painting since 2002 and has been centering his pieces around people in the subways of New York City. He had a solo exhibition at the Williamsburg Library Gallery titled the “Waiting for the G Train” in 2007.

Atsushi Ohashi is an artist and art educator with more than 30 years of experience in New York City and Tokyo, Japan. His work has been published in art books and magazines in both the U.S. and Japan including New York Art World, Art in America, and Contemporary Artists in Japan. In addition, from 1989 to 1944 he taught sculpture at the prestigious Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music. Currently he devotes his time to art education and teaches classes and workshops to children throughout New York City. .