TOMOO GOKITA – BÉSAME MUCHO
2015-04-20On view will be new works by Tokyo-based Tomoo Gokita, who is acclaimed for his black and white gouache canvases that incorporate exceptional draftsmanship with surreal imagery. Gokita continues his monochromatic series that explores the traditional portrait format on a range of scales, using source material from vintage postcards, magazines, found photos, and classic film stills. With a celebrated career in illustration and graphic design, Gokita first rose to prominence after creating a series of newsprint books. In 2005, he turned to painting, developing a distinctive greyscale aesthetic that combines deft tonal modeling of figures with a material flatness, both alluding to and obscuring characters appropriated from western popular culture and marginal countercultural sources. Alongside Gokita’s intimate portraits of individuals, this exhibition will feature large-scale group compositions that are an evolution in the artist’s oeuvre.
Gokita places his subjects in ambiguous picture planes that recall the photographic source while also reinforcing the works’ status as painting. Mixing a range of twentieth century art historical references, Gokita distorts his subjects’ bodies and obfuscates their faces, blurring them with gradients and shapes. Hands become aberrant and outsize, and eyes are replaced with tiny dots.
Opposite – How to Marry a Millionaire, 2015
Exhibition runs through to May 16th, 2015
Honor Fraser Gallery
2622 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles
CA 90034
