Satoru Kurata “Night Waiting for Morning”

During his first solo exhibition at our gallery, Kurata said that his practice could be read in terms of “worthlessness and beauty.” He has been producing work from a personal standpoint, in response to the question of whether life is devoid of meaning and worthless, forms of beauty that exist in spite of this, and the movements of our hearts and minds.

The objects depicted in the new works on display at this exhibition have changed dramatically. Previously, Kurata’s motifs were mostly imagined from memory: dusk, the sea, night, cars, eggs, dogs, sleeping, and so on. Since moving to the suburbs where there are many elderly people several years ago, however, Kurata began to paint people, plants, nature, animals, and daytime scenes that he saw daily in his studio, home, and the surrounding areas as concrete subjects for his paintings.

Kurata’s new work Night Waiting for Morning is a self-portrait of himself lying down in his studio, with succulent plants in the background that he actually grows. The paintings within this painting are images of his previous works.

These works feel turbulent yet calm. Everything seems to be coincidental, and viewers feel as if something in them is related to them. Their humor, meanwhile, is somehow redeeming.