Born in Osaka Japan in 1975, Motonori Uwasu graduated in Fine Art from Osaka University of Arts in 1999.
For his first solo show outside of Japan, the artist draws from hazy scenes that linger dimly in his childhood memory. In translating these images to the canvas however, Uwasu breathes life into them once again, ramping up their childlike qualities with pop colours and squiggled lines.
“I have a vague scene in my memory. A scene from my childhood in which I’m looking out from a car my mother or father was driving. Though I had no idea where we were going, I still remember simply watching snapshots of odd buildings and houses in a line.”
For HOUSE AND CAR the artist explores the tenuous link between memory and experience. The unnatural, quirked line work and inaccurate depth evoke the distance that grows between reality and memory as an experience begins to fade, as images weaken over time and transform into dreamlike obscurity.
A gentle mood and lush pastel colours make for an instantly enjoyable serenity, compounded by the innocence of the paintings’ infantile ‘wrongness’. The peace is, however, interrupted by the puzzles that are left for the viewer to solve. Story-less and anonymous landscapes beg the question, what is actually going on here? Theres no one to be seen, no depth, no sound, just an agitated unevenness to these seemingly tranquil suburban landscapes.
The titles of the works give us no more indication either; Blue Car, Pink Car, Apartment, Landscape. Tell us more Uwasu-san? What’s left unsaid forces a rift between the dreamy calm of the paintings and their mundane inconspicuousness, and suggestively points to something more than originally meets the eye
