Hagiwara Projects is delighted to announce the solo exhibition "coming and going” by Norihiko Nukata, opening on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. This marks his first solo exhibition with our gallery in six years.

Since the 1990s, Nukata has participated in numerous exhibitions at museums and galleries, showcasing his evolving body of work. In the mid-1990s, he established a distinctive style of drawing grid-like structures reminiscent of jungle gyms. Today, his method involves painting lines freehand on uniformly primed linen, following the fabric's weave without the aid of masking tape.

This exhibition will feature a selection of works born from the process of "drawing lines along the fabric's weave," including "horizontal lines," "point," " diagonal parallel lines," " diagonal lines," "triangles," and "jungle gym." This selection highlights the evolution from his previous "diagonal lines" series and introduces new approaches.

By adhering to a consistent procedure in his creative process, Nukata reduces arbitrary decisions and subjective evaluations, resulting in what he describes as "a painting that substantiates itself." His works, characterized by their simple, yet tense clarity and the  cumulative traces of time, invite viewers to reconsider their choices and value judgments. Instead of focusing on deciphering the depicted images, his art offers the freedom to question and explore. Through this engagement, Nukata aims to resonate with the universal sensibilities and perceptions at the core of human experience, fostering a rich dialogue with the audience.

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Artist statement:

Since the 1990s "Jungle Gym" series, various other series have been created. Since 2010, the process of "drawing lines along the fabric's weave" has been incorporated. Each series has been developed in a non-hierarchical, transversal, and fragmentary manner, presenting a "reciprocal relationship" between beauty and painting. For example, approaches such as "drawing lines along the fabric's weave" and "using ready-made paints and stretcher frames" are derived from the reciprocal relationship between the invisible and the visible, similar to the relationship between "form" and "shape." The "form," like the state of "beauty," is a "trace" that does not reveal itself. On the other hand, the "shape" that is the "painting" itself can serve as a foundation. 

                                                                                                                                                                            Nobuhiko Nukata May 2024

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Nukata Nobuhiko, born in Osaka Prefecture in 1963, currently resides in Aichi Prefecture. He completed his master's degree in oil painting at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in 1990. His major exhibitions include "Opening and Connecting" Okazaki City Museum (2024, Aichi), "GROUND3: Ordinary in Painting - Ordinary Painting" Art Lab Aichi (2023, Aichi), "F.P.M.S." HAGIWARA PROJECTS (2018, Tokyo), "GROUND2" Musashino Art University Museum & Library (2016, Tokyo), "Spider's Thread" Toyota Municipal Museum of Art (2016, Aichi), "GROUND2" Musashino Art University Museum & Library (2016, Tokyo), “Twentieth Anniversary Special MOT Collection Chronicle 1995 –” The Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2014, Tokyo), " Younger Generation of the Terada Collection" Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2011, Tokyo), "dark adaptation" Galerie Tokyo Humanité (2010, Tokyo), " In the Little Playland - Hitsuda Nobuya and his surrounding students" Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art and Nagoya City Art Museum (2009, Aichi), "Curator's Eye - 'Dot' and 'Net'" Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (2005, Saitama), Gallery NW House (1997, Tokyo), Contemporary Art Center Criterium at Art Tower Mito (1997, Ibaraki), among others.

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