Imura art gallery tokyo presents Natsunosuke Mise's solo exhibition "Vernacular Painting." It is his fourth solo exhibition taken place at imura art gallery.

Natsunosuke Mise has been inquiring what "Japan" has become in "Japanese art" by applying  traditional Japanese art materials such as washi (japanese paper) and sumi (Japanese ink) combined freely with other materials and techniques including acrylic paint and collage, while mixing familiar motifs and historical motifs in his works. After going through the period when he was mentally unable to produce art after witnessing The Great Hansin earthquake in 1995 in his home town in Nara, he relocated to Yamagata in 2009 and was teaching his juniors when The Great Earthquake of Eastern Japan hit. These experiences put Mise in pursuit of something beyond arts driven by personal feelings without depending on his own physical sense and subjectivity as judgmental criteria while still relating to them, in order to survive in this unstable world. Recently he has come to believe such contemporary arts could be archived through ethnological approach. 

*image (left)
courtesy of the artist and Imura Art