For the first time in 3 years, Nishimura Gallery is pleased to present KOBAYASHI Takanobu solo exhibition “Two seconds before dreaming” for his new works.
KOBAYASHI Takanobu was born in Nihonbashi, Tokyo in 1960, and graduated from Aichi University of the Arts in 1986. From the 80’s to the early 90’s, he made a number of paintings of a submarine wandering alone in different daily scenes, in which the subject was a metaphor to the state of his mind feeling and observing the world in solitude. In the exhibition “Mito Annual ’95 －Discover Paintings: works & language”(Art Tower Mito), he won high praise from the works representing light falling onto the water fountain and the dog in the park. In 1996, he received the Encouraging Prize in the Vision of Contemporary Art (VOCA) competition, and also his first solo exhibition in our gallery was held. From 1999 to 2012, he had lived and worked both in Tokyo and Bangkok. The environment of Thailand led him to find new subjects like dishes and tale lamps, and to evolve his distinctive expression of glowing light. Thereafter, he chose human figures as his new motif and developed his works to the series of “Small Death” and “Sunbather”. In 2004, his solo exhibition “Kobayashi Takanobu ―Endless Summer” was held in the Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo. In 2006, a series of close-up faces titled “Portrait” was exhibited in our gallery. In recent years, he paints the lights, figures, and objects going through changes in the forest dramatically, and receives increased recognition.
This exhibition will be composed of the combination of the recent works in which certain stories can be read and the works trying to represent something universal taking in lights heretofore. We will exhibit about 10 new drawings and 5 new paintings, commencing with a 197 x 333 cm sized big piece representing the forest in the soft rising sun.
Kobayashi said that he had tried to push out the narrativity and take the objects to the universal images, but through the first experiences on the trot since 2011, he has come to feel the unrealistic feeling and then he got a word “story” off the top of his head. It does not mean that the story has exact organization, but it is fragmentary. For example, the image of a man following a bird in his new work represents his imagination almost directly. That means this is less universalized compared with his past works. However, even though it will be interrupted limitedly by representing the image in his head directly, he has come to think there is no way but to paint it and accept it.
As respects “the unrealistic feeling” above, Kobayashi said that is “the feeling he is not walking though he is walking, the feeling he does not know what he looks at though he looks at something, and the feeling in the dreams”. The title of this exhibition “Two seconds before dreaming” was named because the feeling when the “story” had struck him is similar as the feeling in the moment before dropping off to sleep when he goes to bet actually; coming to see the unreal scene and feeling it is not sure if he is awake or asleep although he is awake.
Courtesy of Nishimura Gallery
