by Imura Art Gallery | Tokyo Location: Imura Art Gallery, Tokyo
Artist(s): Masaharu SATO
Date: 7 Jan - 28 Jan 2012
Masaharu Sato (born in Oita prefecture, 1973) graduated from oi l painting course, faculty of fine arts, Tokyo University of the Arts and completed a master's degree at the same university. In 2000 he moved his basement to Germany, and afterward has been creating works in Toride city in Ibaraki prefecture since 2010.
As apparent as his winning of the Okamoto Taro memorial award for contemporary art and exhibiting at "No Mans Land" (The old office of French embassy, Tokyo) in 2009, his works have been highly evaluated. He is recognized for his talent and collect e xpectations for future career not only within Japan but worldwide that his works have been displayed a t international exhibitions such as Di-stances (Kuandu museum of fine arts, Taipei) and City net Asia 2009 (Seoul museum of art).
Sato utilizes extraordinary techniques and manners to create hi s works. First he takes pictures and enters the data into a computer. After tracing the photography data, he puts undercoating just like the preparation process of oil painting, and draw s with pen-tablet in the same way of applying oil painting over and over. Deleting the photography data at the end, it leaves only the layer he draws with a pen-tablet. Being created through such wa y, Sato's works are given peculiar air which doesn't belong to neither photography nor painting.
Sato's digital animations are made by piling up several paintings ( still images) created through this process. Toride elegy will exhibit 7 animation works, and at Little girl Coco we are going to show painting works that depict a model of 2 years old girl from his neighborhood.