Ota Fine Arts is delighted to present new work by emerging Japanese artist Masanori Handa in his first solo exhibition in Singapore entitled "Nakakiyo no Entakukei." Masanori Handa's world is one of playful, impressionistic, yet nonetheless contemplative experimentation. Fleeting encounters and occurences often give vital momentum to his practice. Sites, scenery, and urban phenomena are the loci at which incidents are recorded and vividly remembered by Handa.
This September, Handa stages an immense, yet intricate, site-specific installation put together with an assortment of trailing vines, timber, cement, canvas, foam and fabric. The enormity of the work is breathtaking, and "nakakiyo no entakukei" is indeed intended to invoke a deeper experience for its viewer. With one's sense of touch, hearing, sight and smell, the work introduces the viewer to an array of unexpected encounters.
Handa first envisioned "nakakiyo no entakukei" as a low-lying delta, patterned by meandering rivers and streams. Sculpted by the external processes of rainfall, temperature change, humidity and wind energy, the delta was imaginatively granted altitude and volume to form a picturesque landscape. This topographical feature is here constructed with circular tables and littered with ordinary objects. The texture of the feature is light and its appearance welcoming amidst this lush greenery. Albeit confined by the gallery space, the feature is neither restricted in its form nor geographical location.
The show's inventive title "nakakiyo no entakukei" is in romanji - the artist's mother tongue scripted in Latin alphabet. "nakakiyo no" is extracted from a Japanese traditional poem, known for its palindromic form and expression of a "long, humid night". "entakukei" is uniquely coined by the artist from "bonkei" - the art of creating miniature landscape gardens - in Handa's case, the word's prefix -entaku refers to the round tables that make up his scenic landscape. Yet the slippages and losses that results from this overly literal translation point to the very inadequacy of language in interpreting Handa's work.
Through the work, "nakakiyo no entakukei", Handa stages processual encounters that unravel the affective potentials of atmosphere, climate, psychogeography and cross-cultural dialogue.
About the artist:
Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1979, Masanori Handa completed a BA in Fine Arts at the Tokyo University of the Arts, where he continues to work today. His works have previously been shown at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (2006) and the Art Tower Mito (2007). In 2009, Handa was selected to be apart of the prestigious "Rolex Art Initiative Mentor and Protégé" program where he was mentored by Rebecca Horn, an accomplished German installation artist and film director. Subsequently, he participated in notable group exhibitions, workshops and site-specific projects at the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2011), the Hara Museum, Tokyo (2009), the Edoardo Chiossone Museum, Genoa (2009) and the TATE Modern, London (2009).
Image: © Masanori Handa, Ota Fine Arts
