Ai Kowada Gallery is going to present "Instantiation" Hiroshige Fukuhara's solo exhibition. Fukuhara won the final selection at Philip Morris Art Award (Tokyo, 1997) and took part in a group exhibition at PS1 MoMA Contemporary Art Centre (NY, 2001) still being a student at Art School. Then he changed his career into graphic designer and has been succeeding with logotypes for hit products and established companies.

Restarting his creation in 2009, Fukuhara worked on paintings with a unique method, where all the motifs were consisted of solid lines in the same thickness. After years of absence, his new works were presented for the first time at PULSE art fair (NY & Miami, 2010) and all the pieces at his solo exhibition were sold out on the first day, so as at The Armory Show, the biggest art show in New York. He has received keen attention from collectors especially in U.S. and Europe.

Fukuhara drew images on black painted canvases with solid lines without drafts. Due to the character of the simplest media, pencil on the black canvas, images gave you different impressions depend on the environment, such as distances to the canvas or types of light. New works, both "black on black" and new series of silver started last year, will be released for the first time in Japan at this exhibition.

Fukuhara challenged the biggest size of work in his career. With this size, you'd find by far sharper a contrast between a canvas looked at from a distance and one closer, since it looked like just a black-painted canvas at the first glance. However, as you came close to it, you'd find endlessly scattered motifs such as leaves, flowers, waves and horses, which were typical to Fukuhara's works.

Courtesy of Ai Kowada Gallery